# Can music be too technical?



## Manok (Aug 29, 2011)

By that I mean, there are many modern pieces, that basically require a degree in physics to figure out what is going on, and there may possibly be some tonal works that require the same, but I have often wondered, if some modern music is simply too technical for most people to just sit down and listen and enjoy, which is what most people want to do, just sit and enjoy, now I'm not saying that I am like the guy from Amadeus and saying "too many notes." I'm just wondering if perhaps atonal music could be approached from a listenable standpoint instead of lets see how complicated we can make the music, which seems to be the point of atonal music, if it is not merely composed at random with no thought at all. I just thought this might be a fun discussion.


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## Arsakes (Feb 20, 2012)

In modern music: Least fans <=> Most artistic and meaningful

go figure...


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## Renaissance (Jul 10, 2012)

All music is technical. Without techniques and theory you wouldn't know how to turn some tones into great music.


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## regressivetransphobe (May 16, 2011)

Renaissance said:


> All music is technical.


Besides free improv played by people who can't read music.

So in other words, besides free improv.


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## Mephistopheles (Sep 3, 2012)

"Figure out what is going on"? Sound enters ears; you see if you like it. Where's the difficulty in that?


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## MaestroViolinist (May 22, 2012)

Hehe, I had to laugh at the "Too many notes" part, I just watched that movie the other day.  

Anyways. All music has a technical and musical aspect; it seems to me though, that modern music is more technical. But I can't really say what the composer's reason is to compose this music, so they may think that it really is musical or they really do think "lets see how interesting this can be."


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## Renaissance (Jul 10, 2012)

regressivetransphobe said:


> Besides free improv played by people who can't read music.
> 
> So in other words, besides free improv.


Those improvisations are also based on some sort of theory. I mean you kind of understand what notes you can use and what notes you can't use in a given context. You just don't play random notes, because in that way we would all call ourselves musicians.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

All music is technical including free improv. You must know something about the structure of a work to improvise, even in free jazz and stuff otherwise everyone would be even more "wtf?" than they already are.


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## Ramako (Apr 28, 2012)

The thread title says _too_ technical. Of course there is technique in decent music.

Yes. I think that too much is demanded of the listener these days.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

There's no such thing as _too_ technical. It comes down to the technique of the composer. Composers such as Babbitt and Bach have written very "technical" music in a sense but that doesn't stop people from enjoying their works.


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## Mephistopheles (Sep 3, 2012)

Can someone please explain what is ever demanded of the listener? How am I going wrong by putting my headphones in my ears and just seeing if I enjoy the sound, whether or not it's Schumann or Stockhausen?

There seems to be this assumption that because form goes _into_ a piece during composition, a listener must get it _out_ of the piece. But while we can perhaps more easily recognise the form (or other techniques) of Classical music (as opposed to much of contemporary music), when do we, as listeners, _really_ pay attention to that, and get something out of it? When we listen to something in sonata form, we do not think, "Oh yeah! This sonata form development is totally rocking me!" (unless you're particularly interested in that kind of analysis). The effect of a composition's techniques work mostly unconsciously - they all come together to create a single sound-experience which we either like or dislike for a variety of reasons. The structure of a piece may turn out to be why we like it, but that does not mean that understanding the structure of all pieces will make you like them more - that has it all backwards.

You might imagine that because you find contemporary music unlikeable, therefore you're missing something and you have to try to understand its form because you're _expected_ to like it. Well, screw that! If you listen to it and you don't like it, you don't like it. The composer failed in your individual case. Whatever techniques they used just aren't a good match. Forget about it and move on, or return to the piece some other time. No amount of forced intellectual rationalisation is going to get you the emotional response that you want.


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## Ramako (Apr 28, 2012)

^^^^^^^

I can appreciate that people enjoy modern music on an emotional level. However clearly some pieces require more out of a listener. If I may take the well worn example of Bach and Justin Bieber. In my opinion most twentieth century music is more niche than most classical, that it will remain so to some extent and is often intended to be so - or rather certainly not intended to pander to the masses. This is ok on its own ground but I would like to see a modern style that appeals to a wider number of people while retaining its artistic integrity.


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## Mephistopheles (Sep 3, 2012)

Ramako said:


> ^^^^^^^
> 
> I can appreciate that people enjoy modern music on an emotional level. However clearly some pieces require more out of a listener. If I may take the well worn example of Bach and Justin Bieber. In my opinion most twentieth century music is more niche than most classical, that it will remain so to some extent and is often intended to be so - or rather certainly not intended to pander to the masses. This is ok on its own ground but I would like to see a modern style that appeals to a wider number of people while retaining its artistic integrity.


So are you suggesting that Bach demands more of a listener? Except for a longer attention span and an interest in culture, I don't see what else is needed.


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## Ramako (Apr 28, 2012)

Mephistopheles said:


> So are you suggesting that Bach demands more of a listener? Except for a longer attention span and an interest in culture, I don't see what else is needed.


Interest in culture means what exactly?

What I mean is that I think Bach requires more musical intelligence than pop music. This is because your brain had to process all the contrapuntal lines, make mental connections over distance, cope with a greater variety of harmonic progression etc. this doesn't mean you are unmusical I'd you don't like Bach because taste plays at least as greater part. As in most cases of intelligence experience and practice is a great aid.


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## Manok (Aug 29, 2011)

Yes, the emphasis, was on the word "Too" Not just the technicality of music. Older classical music, has a set of tunes in it that people can latch on to, even if they have no idea what a fugue is, they can at least hear the tune and that will stick, and make more of an impact with people I think. It still occurs to me, but a good portion of modern classical music just sounds a jumble if it is using an unfamiliar technique, and even when it uses something I am familiar with it still sounds that way, even if I do happen to enjoy the music. There seems to be less of an emphasis on what people would actually enjoy listening to, and more on the technical side of the music being written nowadays.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Well not that anyone cares, but I did some threads on this a while back:
http://www.talkclassical.com/15486-complexity-music.html
http://www.talkclassical.com/17622-balancing-predictable-surprising-music.html

The first one is more relevant to this issue.

My personal take hinges on the Copland book I was reading, which I talked about in the first thread above. In that, Copland said he looked at a score of Boulez back then (1950's) and said that it was enormously complex. Too complex even for those trained in music, like a composer, to understand with a reasonable application of effort. But Copland was not dissing Boulez, he said he was a great composer and it was as valid piece of music as any. The issue is though that there is at least some validity in the opinion that some music goes beyond the pale of complexity. Michael Tippett said something like that in an interview I was reading. He said that minimalism bored him, it was too simple, and things like Sorabji, they where too complex for their own good. That was just his opinion, but its a valid one, I think. I actually like some pieces by Boulez, but others don't reach me on any level - even the 'gut' level like the music of Xenakis, for example. Or the 'creeped out' feel I get from say Ligeti's _Requiem._

Its all personal and subjective of course, or a large part of it, but ultimately a composer is not just writing for himself, but for an audience. & I think the best composers can kind of find a balance or compromise between things like complexity (or 'cutting edge' technical innovations) and be able to communicate to listeners of many kinds at the same time. But what that 'thing' is, I don't know. I doubt composers themselves know. As Tippett said in that interview, the advice he'd give to any young composer back then (about 20 years ago) was to 'use your ears' and listen to your music. Forget the intellectual gobbledigook and actually get down to things like emotion. Of course there is room for other things, but for Tippett, communication (and content) was paramount over form or just applying some technique just for the sake of it. & the same seems to go with many composers I connect with deeply, as I suggested.


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## Mephistopheles (Sep 3, 2012)

Ramako said:


> Interest in culture means what exactly?


Interest in something that has higher aims than fame and commercial success.



Ramako said:


> What I mean is that I think Bach requires more musical intelligence than pop music. This is because your brain had to process all the contrapuntal lines, make mental connections over distance, cope with a greater variety of harmonic progression etc. this doesn't mean you are unmusical I'd you don't like Bach because taste plays at least as greater part. As in most cases of intelligence experience and practice is a great aid.


Experience and practice, exactly - _not_ conscious learning. To fall in love with Bach, you don't need to learn to read along with a score; you don't need to consciously train yourself to recognise counterpoint or accept a greater harmonic palette. All you need is to accustom yourself to the music through time. As I said earlier, it's just a matter of letting the sound enter your ears and seeing if you enjoy it. If you don't, leave it or try again later. You shouldn't feel compelled to like it, and then resort to courses in contrapuntal theory to make yourself realise that this music you're not liking is really, actually very good!


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## LordBlackudder (Nov 13, 2010)

maybe too technical for one person but not for the next.


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## drpraetorus (Aug 9, 2012)

Music can be too anything depending on the audience. For many, modern music has become something foreign and unmusical. Modern music had lost a large part of it audience by ignoring them or looking down on them. And some of it really is like the Emperors New Clothes.


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

drpraetorus said:


> And some of it really is like the Emperors New Clothes.


That could also be said of the praise classical music in general (or the especially highly regarded composers in that idiom) gets above everything else in music, among the circles that like classical music.


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## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

The more technical the pieces, the more clever it is. Why does everything have to be from the heart? Why can't this be math once in a while?


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

neoshredder said:


> The more technical the pieces, the more clever it is. Why does everything have to be from the heart? Why can't this be math once in a while?


After all, mathematics _is_ a beautiful thing.


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

neoshredder said:


> The more technical the pieces, the more clever it is. Why does everything have to be from the heart? Why can't this be math once in a while?


I think as long as it comes from within, whether that be the heart or the mind (which I don't think are ever truly disconnected). However, I think the point is more that there needs to be some reason that a person wants to employ technical things in their art. If its just simply a demonstration to show what could be done or what could happen when using a certain approach, to me, that can be interesting for a bit, but ultimately boring in the end. However, I don't think many are truly guilty of that. I mean, to be a composer takes a ton of work, so why would somebody ever put that much effort in if not out of love or passion in some form?


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## Mephistopheles (Sep 3, 2012)

The more we like a piece of music, the cleverer it is.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

BurningDesire said:


> I think as long as it comes from within, whether that be the heart or the mind (which I don't think are ever truly disconnected). However, I think the point is more that there needs to be some reason that a person wants to employ technical things in their art. If its just simply a demonstration to show what could be done or what could happen when using a certain approach, to me, that can be interesting for a bit, but ultimately boring in the end. However, I don't think many are truly guilty of that. I mean, to be a composer takes a ton of work, so why would somebody ever put that much effort in if not out of love or passion in some form?


I agree with that and I think that it does explain the reason why some music of the past 100 years or so do have a level of popularity with a wide range of listeners. Take Berg's _Violin Concerto_, in which he did flexibly use the serial technique (mathematics!), combining that with other things like his trademark Viennese waltzes, a kind of 'romantic' feel, and that Bach chorale tune that comes at the end like a blessing of 'the Angel' who he wrote this in memory of (the young girl who died tragically and was like a daughter to him). So it brings these things together (& then some!) and audiences connect with that.

On a thread I made years back - http://www.talkclassical.com/5405-alban-berg.html - I started saying that Berg was one of my entry points into more recent classical musics, and that I thought that similarly others might start with him and then progress to (say) the other two Viennese atonalists. Some people disagreed, saying that at least Schoenberg and Webern have more 'tonal' works from their early periods. Berg's output is largely atonal and serial. So they argued that based on technique, the others would be easier to get into. Well it ain't necessarily so. & some people on that thread ended up agreeing, they tried Berg (including this work, and others I talked about) and it worked with them similar how it did with me. So technique is not the be all and end all, seemingly more 'difficult' music can connect with people if the composer can balance things out (which there is no set theory on, its very intuitive, even great composers and musicians can't answer an interviewer asking something like 'How did you do it?').

My opinions, some of them, have changed since that Berg thread. But my premise is similar, no matter what the technique, music from the Viennese atonalists to those who emerged after 1945 to composers today, any listener can get something out of it if it has this probably undefinable balance between form and content.


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## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

I think this is more a problem for modern jazz than classical music.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

bigshot said:


> I think this is more a problem for modern jazz than classical music.


I agree 100%


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

bigshot said:


> I think this is more a problem for modern jazz than classical music.


In what way?


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

BurningDesire said:


> In what way?


I don't know either, but I agree with it.


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## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

I just don't enjoy much of the Jazz period. Modern or Classic. Just a different style no doubt about it. But there are a few players I like. Shawn Lane, Allan Holdsworth, Al Di Meola, John McLaughlin, and Miles Davis.


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

neoshredder said:


> I just don't enjoy much of the Jazz period. Modern or Classic. Just a different style no doubt about it. But there are a few players I like. Shawn Lane, Allan Holdsworth, Al Di Meola, John McLaughlin, and Miles Davis.


What a surprise, the guitarist likes guitarists  check out Jaco Pastorius, Herbie Hancock, and Charles Mingus.


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## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

BurningDesire said:


> What a surprise, the guitarist likes guitarists  check out Jaco Pastorius, Herbie Hancock, and Charles Mingus.


Thanks for the suggestions. I will remember to check out their music.  Atm on a Beethoven binge.


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## drpraetorus (Aug 9, 2012)

Jazz went through the same loosing audiences that classical did. Starting with the bop movement in the 50's jazz became more esoteric than the audiences wanted. It became like the classical of the time, musica reservata. Music by musicians for musicians. And in both classical and jazz there has been a step back from the esoteric edge and a remembrance of the general audience.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

The techniques used by a composer can be very complex. It may involve contrapuntal intricacies, exploration of the sonority of a particular instrument, a theoretical construct, etc. Now, for the well informed and cultured listener, who may be able to understand intelectually at some degree the techniques which are used in the composition, I think that this listener will judge the music largely based on his taste, this taste possibly will be sophisticated. But this sophistication of his taste has been constructed with experience, knowledge, readings, etc, i.e., the fact of being informed can contribute to a maturation in the listener's taste. This is not the same as saying that the ability to understand the technical intricacies of a piece implies that the listener will enjoy the piece. It's a much more complex interaction. So I think that a piece can be complex and that a cultured listener will have more chances of enjoying the piece that a casual listener, "enjoying" in the full meaning of the word, not just an "intellectual enjoy", fruit of an intellectual understanding of the compositional technique used in the piece. Complexity in music should not be relegated, that's just short minded. It may be more difficult, but what's the problem with that. I firmly believe that good art always does a visceral impression, but that impression not necessarily will be superficial and easily recognizable. That's what I like of some modern music for example, it produces me very interesting and complex sensations, images, etc. The human subjectivity is very big and diverse as to reduce it to a unidimensionality.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

aleazk said:


> The techniques used by a composer can be very complex. It may involve contrapuntal intricacies, exploration of the sonority of a particular instrument, a theoretical construct, etc. Now, for the well informed and cultured listener, who may be able to understand intelectually at some degree the techniques which are used in the composition, I think that this listener will judge the music largely based on his taste, this taste possibly will be sophisticated. But this sophistication of his taste has been constructed with experience, knowledge, readings, etc, i.e., the fact of being informed can contribute to a maturation in the listener's taste. This is not the same as saying that the ability to understand the technical intricacies of a piece implies that the listener will enjoy the piece. It's a much more complex interaction. So I think that a piece can be complex and that a cultured listener will have more chances of enjoying the piece that a casual listener, "enjoying" in the full meaning of the word, not just an "intellectual enjoy", fruit of an intellectual understanding of the compositional technique used in the piece. Complexity in music should not be relegated, that's just short minded. It may be more difficult, but what's the problem with that. I firmly believe that good art always does a visceral impression, but that impression not necessarily will be superficial and easily recognizable. That's what I like of some modern music for example, it produces me very interesting and complex sensations, images, etc. The human subjectivity is very big and diverse as to reduce it to a unidimensionality.


tl; dr 

.

....


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## Andreas (Apr 27, 2012)

Sid James said:


> Its all personal and subjective of course, or a large part of it, but ultimately a composer is not just writing for himself, but for an audience.


This raises a good point, because I think that the "audience" composers write for may not necessarily be the regular concert audience. I think the "audience" can be a future audience, or posterity in general.

When Schoenberg said that his twelve-tone system would secure the dominance of German music for a hundred years to come, or when Mahler said that his time would come fifty years after his death, I think they revealed that their "audience" was one of the future.

The audience composers write for probably also includes other composers they admire. Fellow contemporary composers or composers of the past. We know Brahms had a bust of Beethoven that was looking down on his desk. Some serious quality management right there! I think Brahms was largely writing for a small gathering of people consisting of Beethoven, Bach, Schubert, Schumann and maybe some more.

I think fellow composers, dead or alive, are more appreciative of the formal and technical aspects of music than the regular listener. And so if a composer feels that they're writing primarily for their peers, or for posterity, or, simply, for themselves, there cannot really be any such thing as "too technical".


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Andreas said:


> This raises a good point, because I think that the "audience" composers write for may not necessarily be the regular concert audience. I think the "audience" can be a future audience, or posterity in general.
> 
> ...
> I think fellow composers, dead or alive, are more appreciative of the formal and technical aspects of music than the regular listener. And so if a composer feels that they're writing primarily for their peers, or for posterity, or, simply, for themselves, there cannot really be any such thing as "too technical".


I think audience is important, as with any artform. & this is linked to 'intersubjectivity,' in terms of how different segments of an audience react to and take in or engage with a particular work. There will be commonalities and differences between how they all 'consume' art.

It is subjective though as I said. I have enjoyed and connected with some very complex music (eg. Harry Partch's 'Delusion of the Fury') and yet with others, I'm totally lost (eg. Boulez's 'Sur Incises' is an example).

In terms of a composer writing for himself, Ives of course is a good example, his 'day job' was not music. & Arnold Bax also lived by 'independent means,' so he never needed to compose to put food on the table or pay the bills. These factors are important. But in terms of the mainstream 'warhorse' type performance repertoire today, a lot of it was either accepted around the time it was first performed or not long after. Bach with his 100 year time lag is an exception, but things like Beethoven's 9th symphony (pretty complex for the time) where well recieved back then. Then again, many where baffled with his late piano sonatas and string quartets (even musicians). So I can see the validity with what you're saying. It just varies from piece to piece and from composer to composer too.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

" .... I'm just wondering if perhaps atonal music could be approached from a listenable standpoint instead of lets see how complicated we can make the music, which seems to be the point of atonal music, if it is not merely composed at random with no thought at all."

.... I'm just wondering if perhaps tonal music could be approached from a listenable standpoint instead of lets see how complicated we can make the music, which seems to be the point of tonal music, if it is not merely composed at random with no thought at all.

.... I'm just wondering if perhaps Beethoven's music could be approached from a listenable standpoint instead of lets see how complicated we can make the music, which seems to be the point of Beethoven's music, if it is not merely composed at random with no thought at all.

It is a very old saw you are sawing away with. I chose Beethoven deliberately. In the very same context as you wrote, many of his contemporaries said the same thing about Beethoven's works in about the same words.

Think about it.


ADD: Wasn't it Beethoven who said that if audiences did not care for his work that he / it could wait fifty years, and that essentially, he didn't give a fig about the audience?


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## Ramako (Apr 28, 2012)

PetrB said:


> It is a very old saw you are sawing away with. I chose Beethoven deliberately, because in the very same context as you wrote, many of his contemporaries could have said the same thing in about the same words.
> 
> Think about it.


Yes, but people still say the same thing about Schoenberg now when equivalently Beethoven would have been idolized 50 or more years ago.

Think about it.

I do not agree that modern classical is equivalent, but more modern, than classical. It should be a different genre altogether.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Ramako said:


> Yes, but people still say the same thing about Schoenberg now when equivalently Beethoven would have been idolized 50 or more years ago.
> 
> Think about it.


Bach and Mahler were dead to the musical public, each of them, for about 75 years after their respective deaths.

Schoenberg died in 1951, and is just now beginning to gain more play and attention....

Think about it.


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## Ramako (Apr 28, 2012)

PetrB said:


> Bach and Mahler were dead to the musical public, each of them, for about 75 years after their respective deaths.
> 
> Schoenberg died in 1951, and is just now beginning to gain more play and attention....
> 
> Think about it.


Those are two composers, I am talking about an entire genre of music. Schoenberg I use an example of modern classical in general, whereas Bach is an example of Bach, and Mahler of Mahler. I don't see hordes of Schoenberg fans anyway. Where are they hiding?

What's more, Handel was adored in his own lifetime, and has never been dead to the musical public. Nor has Haydn, nor Mozart (true to some extent), nor Tchaikovsky, Brahms etc. etc.

Modern Classical doesn't have those figures.

History repeats itself. But not necessarily in the way that people expect. Assuming that modern classical will be largely accepted in the future is just prophecy. The aesthetics are completely different. We are just assuming that there is a 'line' of music going that history and whatever is in this sacred line is automatically valid.

In the end though, taste is taste, whether or not I am wrong.


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## MaestroViolinist (May 22, 2012)

All the posts in this thread are too long to read. All I say is: Music is music. Nothing is ever "too" technical.


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## Renaissance (Jul 10, 2012)

MaestroViolinist said:


> All the posts in this thread are too long to read. All I say is: Music is music. Nothing is ever "too" technical.


Right, but following this definition modern classical music isn't really music.  Atonal music in general seems to me merely intellectual constructions, so purely technique, nothing "from the heart". If a kind of music is only interested in techniques and exploration, than it is not real music, simply because its purpose is not the enjoyment of its listeners.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Renaissance said:


> Right, but following this definition modern classical music isn't really music.  Atonal music in general *seems to me* merely intellectual constructions, so purely technique, nothing "from the heart". If a kind of music is only interested in techniques and exploration, than it is not real music, simply because its purpose is not the enjoyment of its listeners.


Key words. And also there are many people who do enjoy listening to atonal music. Accessibility is looked down upon by modernists.


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## MaestroViolinist (May 22, 2012)

Renaissance said:


> Right, but following this definition modern classical music isn't really music.  Atonal music in general seems to me merely intellectual constructions, so purely technique, nothing "from the heart". If a kind of music is only interested in techniques and exploration, than it is not real music, simply because its purpose is not the enjoyment of its listeners.


Something made the composer compose it in the first place. And then what decided the notes? Not even a technique actually chooses the notes for you. So it had to come from somewhere.

Edit: besides that technique, um what's it called? Something to do with dice...


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

MaestroViolinist said:


> Something made the composer compose it in the first place. And then what decided the notes? Not even a technique actually chooses the notes for you. So it had to come from somewhere.


Aleatory can.


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## Ramako (Apr 28, 2012)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Key words. And also there are many people who do enjoy listening to atonal music. *Accessibility is looked down upon by modernists.*


That's what I don't like


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Ramako said:


> That's what I don't like


Music is no longer about writing stuff especially for the audience to enjoy. Music is the composer having ideas, developing their ideas, writing their ideas down in a composition and getting it performed and recorded. The audience's job is to listen to it if they want to. Music isn't _for_ anyone really, so it doesn't have to be accessible.


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## Renaissance (Jul 10, 2012)

MaestroViolinist said:


> Something made the composer compose it in the first place. And then what decided the notes? Not even a technique actually chooses the notes for you. So it had to come from somewhere.


There are some pieces of Atonal music which I quite like, especially string quartets. I find SQ one of the best medium for such kind of music. But there is also "music" featuring so many harsh noises and random notes which I really doubt that there is someone who truly enjoy such things. Aside from the "alien" or strange sensations, there is nothing really musical or emotional about those sounds. I have composed plenty of noisy crap during my life, maybe enough to listen to for days. Anyone with a decent music software can produce such "music". NOT all Atonal music is really intellectual and uses advanced compositional techniques.


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## Renaissance (Jul 10, 2012)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Music is no longer about writing stuff especially for the audience to enjoy. Music is the composer having ideas, developing their ideas, writing their ideas down in a composition and getting it performed and recorded. The audience's job is to listen to it if they want to. Music isn't _for_ anyone really, so it doesn't have to be accessible.


Let's face it : Modern music is not even composed to be enjoyed. It is just music composed for the sake of innovation. And this is not what music is all about. Music is meant to be enjoyed, not pushing forward limits just for the sake of innovation and progress.

I am ok with it, but I wouldn't consider it 'classical" music. Like Ramako said, it is more "modern" than classical.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Manok said:


> By that I mean, there are many modern pieces, that basically require a degree in physics to figure out what is going on, and there may possibly be some tonal works that require the same, but I have often wondered, if some modern music is simply too technical for most people to just sit down and listen and enjoy, which is what most people want to do, just sit and enjoy, now I'm not saying that I am like the guy from Amadeus and saying "too many notes." I'm just wondering if perhaps atonal music could be approached from a listenable standpoint instead of lets see how complicated we can make the music, which seems to be the point of atonal music, if it is not merely composed at random with no thought at all. I just thought this might be a fun discussion.


New music should be approached like any other music, at least initially, on a visceral level, as the following quote says.

In the end, our ears are most important. Quoting Jacques Barzun in his intro to Joan Peyser's "The New Music" (p. xii):

*"Making music is for delight; it is intended for sentient beings that have hopes and purposes and emotions. Music does not tell about these movements of the human spirit, but it somehow transfixes them, elaborates them, and gives them enduring form and self-renewing vigor. This raison d'être of music is what our electronic composers must exhibit, and we listeners must learn to find in their works."
*


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Renaissance said:


> Let's face it : Modern music is not even composed to be enjoyed. It is just music composed for the sake of innovation. And this is not what music is all about. Music is meant to be enjoyed, not pushing forward limits just for the sake of innovation and progress.


Look here, art is created to be art. Composers are only doing what they want to do. If some listeners aren't intrigued by their creativity then that's no ones fault but the listeners'. I highly doubt that when composers write their music they are thinking 100% of the time "alright, let's make the ugliest noise possible so everyone hates it and I'll be innovative for writing it!"

I find your comment slightly offensive by the way. Music is meant to be organised sound. Whether its enjoyable or not isn't determined by the composer, but rather by the listener.


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## Renaissance (Jul 10, 2012)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Look here, art is created to be art. Composers are only doing what they want to do. If some listeners aren't intrigued by their creativity then that's no ones fault but the listeners'. I highly doubt that when composers write their music they are thinking 100% of the time "alright, let's make the ugliest noise possible so everyone hates it and I'll be innovative for writing it!"
> 
> I find your comment slightly offensive by the way. Music is meant to be organised sound. Whether its enjoyable or not isn't determined by the composer, but rather by the listener.


Sorry, I wasn't mean to be offensive.  Well, yeah, you are right, but not any form of organised sound is music, by my humble opinion. Anyway, there is only one thing that bothers me : Why so many atonal music (no matter that we speak of decent stuff or noisy crap) today ? I mean, there is a lot to experiment with atonality but in a ....you know...musical way. Total random music doesn't mean innovation for me, but with an interesting use of dissonance and atonality things would be different and better. Bartok and even Ligeti did very interesting stuff in this manner.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Sorry for lashing out at you like that, Renaissance. It's just that I am feeling a little hot under the collar this evening for other reasons. I apologise for my aggressiveness and rudeness of my reply.

I don't particularly find "completely random" notes that interesting anyway, unless the orchestration is right.


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## Renaissance (Jul 10, 2012)

No problem :tiphat:


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

In modern music I put my attention more on things like rhythm and tone colour rather than the actual notes used. It makes the music very interesting to hear. By putting melody and harmony in the background I feel like I can get a lot more out of atonal works.


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## nikola (Sep 7, 2012)

Interesting conversation you 2.... 
But, if you make something that nobody will like, for example something that will be unique on musical and 'mathematical' level, what is the point of it then? Will that be 'template' for someone else to compose something new and something that people will like? Is music/art there only to be purpose for itself? Does music/art cares at all for that or only people cares for music? If you compose something that nobody likes, but you think it's unique and great, do you like that then when you hear it?


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

nikola said:


> Interesting conversation you 2....
> But, if you make something that nobody will like, for example something that will be unique on musical and 'mathematical' level, what is the point of it then? Will that be 'template' for someone else to compose something new and something that people will like? Is music/art there only to be purpose for itself? Does music/art cares at all for that or only people cares for music? If you compose something that nobody likes, but you think it's unique and great, do you like that then when you hear it?


->Second Viennese School.


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## nikola (Sep 7, 2012)

Can you give me some example from youtube of some of yours or other inventive modern compositions that I 'may not' like or something that is 'too ground breaking' to be liked?


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

nikola said:


> Can you give me some example from youtube of some of yours or other inventive modern compositions that I 'may not' like or something that is 'too ground breaking' to be liked?


Cataract 3/Yon


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## nikola (Sep 7, 2012)

This is great 
It reminds me of Morricone music from 60's and 70's for some thriller or horror movies. It's actally very exciting.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

nikola said:


> This is great
> It reminds me of Morricone music from 60's and 70's for some thriller or horror movies. It's actally very exciting.


Thank you very much!


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## nikola (Sep 7, 2012)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Thank you very much!


You're welcome!
All those music on the right is yours too? Sounds very interesting too. Just listening to this "second worst piano sonata written in 2009" ... not bad for 'worst'


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## jani (Jun 15, 2012)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Thank you very much!


I like the " Creative madness" Feel on it, or that's how i would describe it.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

nikola said:


> You're welcome!
> All those music on the right is yours too? Sounds very interesting too. Just listening to this "second worst piano sonata written in 2009" ... not bad for 'worst'


Ah yes...don't worry about those other pieces. Although Ode to Marxism was an interesting exercise in harmonic progression.

Thanks for all the compliments guys, but please do move on to discussing music that is too technical like we were before. You can find my compositions in the Today's Composers forum.


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## Ramako (Apr 28, 2012)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Music is no longer about writing stuff especially for the audience to enjoy. Music is the composer having ideas, developing their ideas, writing their ideas down in a composition and getting it performed and recorded. The audience's job is to listen to it if they want to. Music isn't _for_ anyone really, so it doesn't have to be accessible.


I think that this is an excellent example of why modern classical will never be widely accepted, as I was arguing earlier in the thread. It isn't even _supposed_ to be a lot of the time.

I did like your composition by the way :tiphat:, wherever it might end up appearing on the classic fm charts


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

Ramako said:


> Those are two composers, I am talking about an entire genre of music. Schoenberg I use an example of modern classical in general, whereas Bach is an example of Bach, and Mahler of Mahler. I don't see hordes of Schoenberg fans anyway. Where are they hiding?
> 
> What's more, Handel was adored in his own lifetime, and has never been dead to the musical public. Nor has Haydn, nor Mozart (true to some extent), nor Tchaikovsky, Brahms etc. etc.
> 
> ...


I dunno, Handel is pretty dead to me X3

Modern classical does have plenty of beloved figures. Just because they aren't held in the same creepy, fetishistic, religious regard that the classical music hive-mind holds composers like Mozart, Bach, and Beethoven, there are still pretty highly regarded figures. How about Debussy? How about Stravinsky? How about Philip Glass (as little respect I have for his music, he is quite popular)? If you're gonna say that classical music after 1900 has to be its own genre, then why the hell is Bach in the same genre as Chopin? They're pretty different if you ask me. (also classical music isn't a genre to begin with, it is a musical tradition)

And your idea that atonal music is simply to be as complex or technical as possible, that is plain silly.


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

Renaissance said:


> Let's face it : Modern music is not even composed to be enjoyed. It is just music composed for the sake of innovation. And this is not what music is all about. Music is meant to be enjoyed, not pushing forward limits just for the sake of innovation and progress.
> 
> I am ok with it, but I wouldn't consider it 'classical" music. Like Ramako said, it is more "modern" than classical.


The composers enjoy it. Also, these blanket statements of "modern music" really **** me off. _I_ want my music to be enjoyed. Schoenberg wanted his music to be enjoyed. Cage wanted his music to be enjoyed. The argument that an artist is simply innovating for innovation's sake is a stupid load of crap.


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## kv466 (May 18, 2011)

regressivetransphobe said:


> Besides free improv played by people who can't read music.
> 
> So in other words, besides free improv.


I hate to say it, buddy, but you're dead wrong. I've seen many, many musicians that can't read or write yet the way they approach the instrument is completely technical and in many ways better than those who were 'trained'. The world does not in any way revolve around a teacher and a school.

I know for certain that I would much rather prefer playing very well and having all the right habits than be some automaton that regurgitates every, last thing that was taught him and hasn't the slightest clue as to how to think alone or improvise in any way.

One must not be afraid to stand alone and be great.


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> I don't particularly find "completely random" notes that interesting anyway


And you call yourself avant-garde


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## kv466 (May 18, 2011)

And, yes, music _can_ be too technical; when there is more technique than heart.


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

Actually, there is a sort of music I find too technical, and that would be music that is simply written for the purpose of showing-off the abilities of a musician, rather than simply employing their ability toward something really great. This is mainly problem in the music of electric guitarist/composers like Steve Vai, Yngwie Malmsteen and Joe Satriani, but its also something that occurs in solo concerti fairly often. It is a fine line. I generally see this as the case when a piece is boring outside of how technically impressive (or how impressive it seems) for the musician to perform it. Some jazz composers are also guilty of this.


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## jani (Jun 15, 2012)

BurningDesire said:


> Actually, there is a sort of music I find too technical, and that would be music that is simply written for the purpose of showing-off the abilities of a musician, rather than simply employing their ability toward something really great. This is mainly problem in the music of electric guitarist/composers like Steve Vai, Yngwie Malmsteen and Joe Satriani, but its also something that occurs in solo concerti fairly often. It is a fine line. I generally see this as the case when a piece is boring outside of how technically impressive (or how impressive it seems) for the musician to perform it. Some jazz composers are also guilty of this.


The only real Shredder on that list is Yngwie. Vai or Satriani haven't really written any "Show off " pieces.


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## Renaissance (Jul 10, 2012)

BurningDesire said:


> The composers enjoy it. Also, these blanket statements of "modern music" really **** me off. _I_ want my music to be enjoyed. Schoenberg wanted his music to be enjoyed. Cage wanted his music to be enjoyed. The argument that an artist is simply innovating for innovation's sake is a stupid load of crap.


I want to be the smartest guy in the whole world too, but it is not possible. I can take a small dose of Cage, and early Schoenberg, but I can't stand composers like Stockhausen for example. It is only my problem, I know. In the end everyone is free to listen to whatever he likes. But I wouldn't call every crap, classical music. Classical music is that traditional music, played with real instruments, you know.... Maybe they are not innovating, you are right, maybe they just don't have real talent to compose pleasurable music.


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

This whole thread is horse ****.


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

Crudblud said:


> This whole thread is horse ****.


Yes it is.


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

Some don't want their mind stretched too much, so Popular Music, or maybe The Pops is their limit. And that's okay.


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## Renaissance (Jul 10, 2012)

It is not all about "mind". Music is not enjoyable through intellect, no matter how much you try. There are also people who think they enjoy black metal and wonder why are they so depressive and anxious. Music is not just a bunch of sounds, your emotions are clearly influenced by it, in a positive or negative way. You can deny it as long as you wish, but your mind can't control everything on the conscious level. This is confusing music to the brain (not only my brain, but to all kinds of brains) and your body is reacting in this manner to it. I had my Avant-garde period too, but it's all dead to me now. Of course, a small dose of avant-garde is welcomed, but only so. 

I don't seek any fight here, I was wasting same virtual space to put my humble and unimportant opinion on.


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

Renaissance said:


> It is not all about "mind". Music is not enjoyable through intellect, no matter how much you try. There are also people who think they enjoy black metal and wonder why are they so depressive and anxious. Music is not just a bunch of sounds, your emotions are clearly influenced by it, in a positive or negative way. You can deny it as long as you wish, but your mind can't control everything on the conscious level. This is confusing music to the brain (not only my brain, but to all kinds of brains) and your body is reacting in this manner to it. I had my Avant-garde period too, but it's all dead to me now. Of course, a small dose of avant-garde is welcomed, but only so.
> 
> I don't seek any fight here, I was wasting same virtual space to put my humble and unimportant opinion on.


*enjoys some music through intellect, then proceeds to enjoy some black metal and not be depressed or suffer anxiety* huh.


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## nikola (Sep 7, 2012)

For sure some people listens to music because they think it's intellectual... for example jaz.... I was never fan and I appreciate it and like some of it, but some people that I've met who loved jazz were the most annoying and snobbish and awful human beings ever.
For example Leonard Cohen or Bob Dylan or Nick Cave or Tom Waits.... I actually like some of their stuff, especially Bob Dylan and Tom Waits who have some brilliant albums and interesting/unique approach to music, but on the other hand I almost started to dislike such musicians because of all those annoying snobs who listens to them. 
That's why I rather listen to Elton John (and because I love his music) since almost everybody despize him and who loves his music actually really loves his music because of his music. And that sounds fair to me. 
It seems to me that some people are trying to make up for their lack of hearing and sensibility for music with some quasi intellectual approach. 
There are also people who thinks that I like classical music because I want to be better than them. It just shows all that frustration and that, unfortunatelly, music is most of the time 'representing' some stupidity to people. For example, if it's 'cool' they will listen to it. If it's 'uncool' they will not. If it's some generic blues they will praise it and if it's some creative sugary pop song they will hate it. It's most like 'I don't listen to that kind of music because smart and intelligent people don't listen to that kind of music'. 
Are they morons? Probably.

and of course that I don't like all classical music simply becasue it's classical music. I even don't like many stuff from my favorite classical composers.


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## Ramako (Apr 28, 2012)

BurningDesire said:


> And your idea that atonal music is simply to be as complex or technical as possible, that is plain silly.


I don't recall saying that, but I can't be bothered to go back and check so if I did I apologize.



BurningDesire said:


> Modern classical does have plenty of beloved figures. Just because they aren't held in the same creepy, fetishistic, religious regard that the classical music hive-mind holds composers like Mozart, Bach, and Beethoven, there are still pretty highly regarded figures. How about *Debussy*? How about *Stravinsky*? How about *Philip Glass* (as little respect I have for his music, he is quite popular)? If you're gonna say that classical music after 1900 has to be its own genre, then why the hell is Bach in the same genre as Chopin? They're pretty different if you ask me. (also classical music isn't a genre to begin with, it is a musical tradition)


*Debussy* is indeed the modernist who combines, uh, modernism with wide-reaching appeal. It is worth noting, however, that he worked with an aesthetic which prioritized pleasure. I have barely heard of *Philip Glass* before coming on here, let alone knowing he was a popular figure but browsing his works on Youtube (apart from being under the impression that they all sound the same) it was very clear that he is working on harmonic etc. principles. Indeed, from the sacred fount of all knowledge, Wikipedia, near the top I find the following:



> Currently, he describes himself as a "Classicist", pointing out that he is trained in harmony and counterpoint and studied such composers as Franz Schubert, Johann Sebastian Bach and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart with Nadia Boulanger.


*Stravinsky* is however, both well-respected and has a certain wide-ranging appeal. Really his aesthetic is one of dryness, of intellectualism. He defies the answer "no" to this thread (except as personal opinion). However I cannot help that his earlier works (mainly the ballets) are his most popular works. Why is this? I don't know enough about the man to go on much.

However, can you really say that an entire style is going to gain wide-spread appeal on the basis of three figures, or really only on Stravinsky? What's more, this doesn't cover Stockhausen, Ligeti, Boulez etc. who are really what I was talking about. Xenakis said something like music should grasp hold of you, even if it is above an abyss (really mangled quote from memory, sorry) - and this is what I am talking about. I am asserting that this type of *aesthetic* will never gain a particularly wide appeal, even to the extent of current classical. Josquin, a favourite of mine, was a formidable user of technicalities but still served an aesthetic of the beautiful, or often religious. Though this is off-topic, it is the question of your post.

That is why I claim that Chopin and Bach should be in the same genre, but not Stockhausen, because fundamentally both former composers aimed for the sublime, whereas Stockhausen doesn't. I will not comment on the validity of this modernist view, but rather I am asserting it won't gain a much wider appeal than it already has. I say that the modernists broke the tradition you talk of. I may be wrong. Popularity isn't a great marker of much anyway.


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

Ramako said:


> That is why I claim that Chopin and Bach should be in the same genre, but not Stockhausen, because fundamentally both former composers aimed for the sublime, whereas Stockhausen doesn't. I will not comment on the validity of this modernist view, but rather I am asserting it won't gain a much wider appeal than it already has. I say that the modernists broke the tradition you talk of. I may be wrong. Popularity isn't a great marker of much anyway.


How dare you speak as if you knew what Stockhausen or any other composer aimed for? Modernists didn't break from tradition. Schoenberg was very much a classicist in many respects. Simply extending musical vocabulary doesn't mean you break from tradition. It is in the tradition of classical composition to expand the vocabulary of what composers can and will use. In modernism, musical vocabulary expanded to basically accept and include all possibilities. It is about the freedom of artists to express themselves without having to sound like their predecessors.


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## Ramako (Apr 28, 2012)

BurningDesire said:


> How dare you speak as if you knew what Stockhausen or any other composer aimed for? Modernists didn't break from tradition. Schoenberg was very much a classicist in many respects. Simply extending musical vocabulary doesn't mean you break from tradition. It is in the tradition of classical composition to expand the vocabulary of what composers can and will use. In modernism, musical vocabulary expanded to basically accept and include all possibilities. *It is about the freedom of artists to express themselves without having to sound like their predecessors.*


I am only talking about the changing aims of artists over the centuries. Indeed, the idea that a composer should express himself only became really dominant from the nineteenth century, possibly the eighteenth. Composers do not have to subscribe to the dominant ideas of their times of course, but I have never heard that tell that Stockhausen etc. did not. Perhaps I am wrong.

Schoenberg was indeed quite conservative in a lot of ways. However, no one is going to say that breaking with tonality was a small step. The music sounds very different, I believe. Conservatives say so, modernists say so too (sorry CoAG).

This has left the realms of technicalities however, so in future posts I will talk about those only, if you wish to continue this discussion.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Crudblud said:


> This whole thread is horse ****.


Not really, its just what you guys made of it.


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## ErinD (Sep 20, 2012)

As someone who has a degree in Engineering Physics I think I'm overqualified to answer your question 

Anyway, I feel like I "understand" most modern music but it's not really because I can compute the electromagnetic field around a charged sphere rotating at relativistic velocities or whatever. My understanding came after I started composing music of my own and I could "see" the structure of a piece of music when I listened to it.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

PetrB said:


> " .... I'm just wondering if perhaps atonal music could be approached from a listenable standpoint instead of lets see how complicated we can make the music, which seems to be the point of atonal music, if it is not merely composed at random with no thought at all."
> 
> .... I'm just wondering if perhaps tonal music could be approached from a listenable standpoint instead of lets see how complicated we can make the music, which seems to be the point of tonal music, if it is not merely composed at random with no thought at all.
> 
> ...


Yeah well that's kind of like intersubjectivity as I mentioned before. There's different audiences, with different reactions, and I think composers do keep these in mind.
- Layman (not musically trained) listeners
- Fellow musicians and composers
- Critics and musicologists
- In the old days, issues of status - eg. Beethoven's (& composers before him) had a mix of aristocrats, intellectuals, merchants as their audience
- Comparing how people today react to say Beethoven to how they reacted at different points in the past



nikola said:


> Interesting conversation you 2....
> But, if you make something that nobody will like, for example something that will be unique on musical and 'mathematical' level, what is the point of it then? Will that be 'template' for someone else to compose something new and something that people will like? Is music/art there only to be purpose for itself? Does music/art cares at all for that or only people cares for music? If you compose something that nobody likes, but you think it's unique and great, do you like that then when you hear it?


I think that (as some others above pointed out) there is post-1945 stuff that has entered the performing repertoire, or has had some exposure, eg. is on the edges of entering the 'inner circle.' There are other facts with complexity. Elliott Carter said in an interview in the 1990's that he had virtually ceased writing for full symphony orchestra. There's no budgets to fund lots of rehearsal time for that. So he went into chamber - less instruments, less pressure to rehearse in a limited timeframe.

There are composers who are extremely complex. A lot of their music has not been recorded or is rarely performed. Its just not feasible to do this. As I said above, Michael Tippett gave the example of Sorabji 'going beyond the pale of complexity.'



kv466 said:


> I hate to say it, buddy, but you're dead wrong. I've seen many, many musicians that can't read or write yet the way they approach the instrument is completely technical and in many ways better than those who were 'trained'. The world does not in any way revolve around a teacher and a school.
> 
> I know for certain that I would much rather prefer playing very well and having all the right habits than be some automaton that regurgitates every, last thing that was taught him and hasn't the slightest clue as to how to think alone or improvise in any way.
> 
> One must not be afraid to stand alone and be great.


Yeah well Australian composer Peter Sculthorpe said in an interview he kind of envied musicians outside classical without the strictures of classical training. Then there's composers like Lionel Bart (of the musical 'Oliver!'), The Beatles, Irving Berlin and Noel Coward who could not read or write music (or not to any high level). It did not stop them from achieving whatever they needed for the purposes of their music.



Crudblud said:


> This whole thread is horse ****.


As long as it doesn't descend into a huge **** fight it's fine.

Now if you do have horse _manure_* btw, send it down here, I need it for my garden.

* The correct term!


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