# Whose music is “Ugly” to you?



## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

This is inspired by the recent Bruckner thread. I find his music ugly, but at the same time dramatic and interesting. Bartok is my favourite composer, but his music can sound seriously ugly as ******. Britten was a well-known Brahms-hater, calling both his first 2 symphonies “ugly” and pretensious. Listening to Brahms as a Romantic I agreed, till recently, he is actually a Modernist in disguise. Cage’s music is ugly for sure, but I am still intrigued. Ugly can often be the equivalent of interesting (12 tone music).

Who’s music do you find ugly? Do you hate that ugly music?


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

I would say I used to find a lot of modern music ugly, but now I don't think I would use that word for any music. There's music I don't enjoy, music I can't follow, music that is not interesting. But there's not really music I view as ugly.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

Mozart's music is ugly. But only on the inside.


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

Pettersson's 7th--ugly, dark, brooding masterpiece. The moments of beauty are like a twist of the knife.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Beethoven Grosse Fuge. Ugly. Some consider it sublime. Not me.


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## 13hm13 (Oct 31, 2016)

See my thread:
Shostakovich: intentionally ugly?
Shostakovich: intentionally ugly?

Also, I will qualify some of Mahler's compositions as ugly (or silly). Notably, elements of his scherzos. Maybe he (like Shost.) intentionally wrote them so.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Roger Sessions.
Edgar Varese.
Anton Webern.


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## bz3 (Oct 15, 2015)

Mahler first came to mind. My father didn't like his music very much (except the 5th) because he found it ugly. I think it's a fair characterization for the 3rd, 4th, parts of the 6th and 7th, and maybe the Kindertotenlieder. I still like all of those for the most part, except his 4th symphony.

A lot of modernist music is ugly to me but I don't want to get into that too much. Bartok and Stravinsky, as much of a fan as I am of some of their work, a good portion is ugly to me. I've come around recently to Berg but I still find much of it ugly. Oddly I've never found any of Shostakovich ugly, just some I don't like.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Agree that some of Beethoven, Mahler, Sessions, and Webern are ugly. Question is do you still find “ugly music” interesting? Didn’t find the Patterson, nor Shostakovich especially ugly.

I find Mozart, Ravel, Vaughan Williams music very beautiful. Varese, and especially Prokofiev, are beautiful to me in a weird way.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

mbhaub said:


> Roger Sessions.
> Edgar Varese.
> Anton Webern.


Add Xenakis and Ligeti with those and I agree.


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## Capeditiea (Feb 23, 2018)

:3 Braxton's For Four Orchestras


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

There is music I do not like but based on my experiences I have never heard any music that I would consider ugly. I can not think of any off the top of my head. Maybe in the non-classical world. I know of many who like to call music they hate as ugly.


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## mathisdermaler (Mar 29, 2017)

haydn consistently


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

Ugly music is beautiful to me


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

mmsbls said:


> I would say I used to find a lot of modern music ugly, but now I don't think I would use that word for any music. There's music I don't enjoy, music I can't follow, music that is not interesting. But there's not really music I view as ugly.


This is my position too.


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## Genoveva (Nov 9, 2010)

EddieRUKiddingVarese said:


> Ugly music is beautiful to me


Not surprising if you live in a country where everything's upside down.


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## Genoveva (Nov 9, 2010)

My spectrum goes from "very beautiful" (eg Hildegard, Monteverdi) at one end to "quite boring at times" at the other (e.g. some of Mahler and Bruckner). That's not say that I haven't come across any "ugly music". I have, mainly in some of the avante garde areas, but it's such an insignificant part of my collection and interests that it's not worth counting.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

I was listening to some madrigals (by Schutz) the other day & some of the harmonies sounded discordant to me, as they can - I remember feeling the same about some Orlando Gibbons madrigals I listened to in my twenties. I realised that I must have the aural equivalent of a *sweet tooth*  - quite a handicap, for music of any era. 
But even then, I wouldn't have called the madrigals 'ugly' - just '*not-beautiful* to me'.

The discordant sounds in Biber's Battalia, on the other hand, are striking & appropriate and I like & admire them. 
And what about Rebel's Chaos in The Elements - *wow!*
The French concept of a 'jolie laide' comes to mind here.


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## chill782002 (Jan 12, 2017)

Varese and Schoenberg spring to mind, I find those two very hard going. Just my opinion though, I know a lot of people like them and that's great.


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## Guest (Apr 6, 2018)

mmsbls said:


> I don't think I would use that word for any music. There's music I don't enjoy, music I can't follow, music that is not interesting. But there's not really music I view as ugly.


+1

And yet, hypocritically, I would describe some music as beautiful. Perhaps I should change that.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Ugly is alomst too subjective a term. Yes, I think the Gosse Fuge to be "ugly" -- but I like it.
I have always found the motif (in German notation) B-A-C-H to be ugly -- as are all the various pieces people have composed based on it.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Actually, except for the Grosse Fuge, I would describe music that doesn't please me as disappointing, rather than ugly.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

dogen said:


> +1
> 
> And yet, hypocritically, I would describe some music as beautiful. Perhaps I should change that.


I understand what you're saying, but I wonder if it's really hypocritical. Ugly has a sense of repellent or repulsive. I used to feel that way about some music - it was just repellent and I actively wanted to stop listening. My view is different now in that I don't feel the same repulsion that makes me stop listening. I'm just not drawn to the music. Maybe I'm confused or uninterested, but I'm not really repulsed.

Beautiful music though makes time stop for a moment with me feeling exalted.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

I find virtually all atonal to be ugly -a much discussed subject- but I admire/envy those who don't. But over and above that, I find a good deal of modern tonal music homely )) if not ugly. The melodies, such as they are, either are not well developed or the music wanders aimlessly around without any apparent melody if that makes any sense.


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## Marinera (May 13, 2016)

Stockhausen's Luzifers Abschied makes my skin crawl.

Not ugly per se.. more like very _very_ unpleasant. I don't really know what _is_ ugly music, I find the term debatable. However, it's an interesting point that has been mentioned already in the earlier posts that for some inexplicable reason the term 'beautiful' comes more readily when applied to music but not it's antonym.


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## E Cristobal Poveda (Jul 12, 2017)

Stravinsky's music is ugly.

Pretty much everything modernist or post-modernist is repulsive.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

I assume that a tendency to find music _uninteresting_ rather than _ugly_ is a reflection of a general personality type. Some people do seem to be genuinely offended by certain kinds of music while others have a to-each-their-own attitude.

As regards dogen's sly comment about the hypocrisy of describing some music beautiful while never describing any music as ugly, well, that just reflects a sunny disposition, doesn't it? Whereas those who hear ugliness in some music appear to have a more proscriptive view of the world.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Nereffid said:


> I assume that a tendency to find music _uninteresting_ rather than _ugly_ is a reflection of a general personality type. Some people do seem to be genuinely offended by certain kinds of music while others have a to-each-their-own attitude.
> 
> As regards dogen's sly comment about the hypocrisy of describing some music beautiful while never describing any music as ugly, well, that just reflects a sunny disposition, doesn't it? Whereas those who hear ugliness in some music appear to have a more proscriptive view of the world.


Oh, I don't think so. I doubt that how the sounds of music affect a given individual has much to do with personality in general. That might mean that people who like dissonance in music tend to live a life of cacophony.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

Ugly? I would not apply the word ugly to any classical music. I could apply it to some forms of pop music which I sometimes cant stand. In the 1990's in Europe, there was this "eurodance" style. Most of it was just horrible and could be used to torture prisoners at Guantanamo


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

Scott Rickard - "The world's ugliest music"

*p.s.* Fwiw, I think it's an interesting video for the historical introduction to Galois and sonar, though there are obvious problems with the theory.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

Giannis Xenakis and Sciarrino.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

DaveM said:


> Oh, I don't think so. I doubt that how the sounds of music affect a given individual has much to do with personality in general. That might mean that people who like dissonance in music tend to live a life of cacophony.


I don't mean how sounds affect a person, I mean how a person assigns value to sounds. Big difference! How we assign value to things is a reflection of our personality.

A person who likes dissonance may be just as proscriptive in their tastes as someone who dislikes it.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Stravinsky
Ligeti
Boulez
Stockhausen
Nono


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## cmpozr (Apr 5, 2018)

Assigning subjective (and sometimes elusive) terms like "beauty" or "ugliness" to music reveals more about our subjective _reaction_ to it (i.e., "I like it/don't like it") than its actual inherent artistic worth (or, lack of it). Personal judgements have little bearing on a composition's value unless those judgements are based upon critical listening and thorough analysis. There are many pieces that I absolutely don't like; but I recognize that, from an objective perspective, the work in question may possesses great artistic merit: and conversely, I can like something that may simply be artistically worthless. So which has greater value in a discussion: an emotional response, or an intellectual assessment based on facts? To take a composer's entire output, lump it together, and throw it into one broad category or another is subjectivity at its best--and it says more about our inability to understand and _appreciate_ the art form than it does about the music itself.

Scott Rickard's video should be taken with a grain of salt--it begins with erroneous presuppositions about "beautiful" music that betray his questionale musical expertise.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Sloe said:


> Giannis Xenakis and Sciarrino.


"Ugly"... always? My definition of ugly? Lack of imagination and curiosity. But it's tempting to put a composer into a little box wholesale as if he or wrote only one way or had no development, or that the listener had no development, with everthing static and fixed forever. Sometimes one has to search out the beauty in the ocean of the ugly and it can be found in unexpected places or heard with new ears within a lifetime.


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## CnC Bartok (Jun 5, 2017)

Britten's music is for me unrelentingly ugly. How anyone can do what he does to the English language, and make the language of Shakespeare sound both vulgar and vapid at the same time, is beyond me.

But "ugly" is for me a human quality. Even if I am perfectly happy to describe a particular toad or insect as "ugly" I am ascribing it a human quality. I can do that for Britten.

I emphatically cannot for Xenakis.


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## Gaspard de la Nuit (Oct 20, 2014)

the only thing I think is really ugly is something that sounds so completely familiar, it lacks any strangeness or novelty.


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## Capeditiea (Feb 23, 2018)

Capeditiea said:


> :3 Braxton's For Four Orchestras


to renumerate this... 
i think it is ugly, not because i don't like it... i really love it... it is just that the portrayal is quite ugly... (i revisit it about every season.., which is three listens thus far...) 
it just reminds me of sudden bursts of explosions and carelessly put together... i know it is hard work to do four orchestra's at once since one orchestra would have an idea on tempo while the next... another... 
if you want this to work... get the four concert masters together and do a violin quartet. (which i will be willing to write... because this work is utterly amazing if done properly.) the reason for the violin quartet is so the four concert masters can stay in sinc with what their process is.
but for the four conductors, (i am sure most of them play an instrument on the side. so they too should have a quartet... thusly... this could sinchronize the 8 primary members of the four orchestras. but then the four orchestras should each do various chamber works to get to know each other's abilities...)

otherwise this would be in ruin...

but as we all know... each section has a princible. so get the princibles each of the four orchestras (i think i spelt that correctly...) together, and have them do a solo as a group. (a strict solo.) this way everyone can be prolithic in this masterpiece...

 thusly after a year or so, the four orchestras can make Braxton proud.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

This thread is becoming mostly a way of knocking music from the modern and contemporary eras. But I find many of the composers mentioned to be responsible for some of the most beautiful music I know. Indeed, it has long seemed to me that beauty became more central to what composers wanted to do from Bartok onwards. I am not sure what music I do find ugly but do think ugliness is a close relation of blandness and to those composers who produce big emotional statements without the work that can make such moments genuine climaxes. I would urge, though, that those who are finding modern and very modern music ugly to approach such music differently: savour the sounds before you look for meaning. Maybe the meaning will emerge from an appreciation of the sounds. That's how it worked for me.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Enthusiast said:


> This thread is becoming mostly a way of knocking music from the modern and contemporary eras. But I find many of the composers mentioned to be responsible for some of the most beautiful music I know. Indeed, it has long seemed to me that beauty became more central to what composers wanted to do from Bartok onwards. I am not sure what music I do find ugly but do think ugliness is a close relation of blandness and to those composers who produce big emotional statements without the work that can make such moments genuine climaxes. I would urge, though, that those who are finding modern and very modern music ugly to approach such music differently: savour the sounds before you look for meaning. Maybe the meaning will emerge from an appreciation of the sounds. That's how it worked for me.


I love modern music the most of all Eras, even if I do find a lot of it ugly. I don't focus on the ugliness, but on the harmony, rhythms which can have a meaning that can't be achieved with "beautiful" music.

For example, I find this to be downright hideous on one hand, but since I know what is being achieved harmonically with counterpoint, I find it totally engrossing (in the good way :lol


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## Kjetil Heggelund (Jan 4, 2016)

Electronic music by Iancu Dumitrescu is pretty ugly, but I listen to it anyway


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## Star (May 27, 2017)

Listening to Poulenc this morning. Sounded pretty ugly to me


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)




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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Enthusiast said:


> This thread is becoming mostly a way of knocking music from the modern and contemporary eras. But I find many of the composers mentioned to be responsible for some of the most beautiful music I know. Indeed, it has long seemed to me that beauty became more central to what composers wanted to do from Bartok onwards. I am not sure what music I do find ugly but do think ugliness is a close relation of blandness and to those composers who produce big emotional statements without the work that can make such moments genuine climaxes. I would urge, though, that those who are finding modern and very modern music ugly to approach such music differently: savour the sounds before you look for meaning. Maybe the meaning will emerge from an appreciation of the sounds. That's how it worked for me.


Bravo, Bravo and Bravo! Disappointing thread to read.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

Larkenfield said:


> "Ugly"... always? My definition of ugly? Lack of imagination and curiosity. But it's tempting to put a composer into a little box wholesale as if he or wrote only one way or had no development, or that the listener had no development, with everthing static and fixed forever. Sometimes one has to search out the beauty in the ocean of the ugly and it can be found in unexpected places or heard with new ears within a lifetime.


Ugly music that is not beautiful and uncomfortable to listen to.
Xenakis and Sciarrino are two composers whose music is that. I even geat headaches from Xenakis.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Enthusiast said:


> This thread is becoming mostly a way of knocking music from the modern and contemporary eras. But I find many of the composers mentioned to be responsible for some of the most beautiful music I know. Indeed, it has long seemed to me that *beauty became more central to what composers wanted to do from Bartok onwards*. I am not sure what music I do find ugly but do think ugliness is a close relation of blandness and to those composers who produce big emotional statements without the work that can make such moments genuine climaxes. I would urge, though, that those who are finding modern and very modern music ugly to approach such music differently: savour the sounds before you look for meaning. Maybe the meaning will emerge from an appreciation of the sounds. That's how it worked for me.


The problem I see in that statement is many listeners will feel the need to find the music beautiful to appreciate it. If Beauty is the central goal in Modern composers and onwards, then they had failed for almost everyone, even for some of their fans, including me. Even if their music can be found beautiful to a few, their main goal is to find new ways of expression using different techniques. Beauty became a lower priority, while before it was a higher priority than being innovative and pushing the boundaries of tonality, etc. The reason they avoided before was the fear of sounding ugly, and why the tritone was generally avoided, and chromaticism.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

Phil loves classical said:


> The problem I see in that statement is many listeners will feel the need to find the music beautiful to appreciate it. If Beauty is the central goal in Modern composers and onwards, then they had failed for almost everyone, even for some of their fans, including me. Even if their music can be found beautiful to a few, their main goal is to find new ways of expression using different techniques. Beauty became a lower priority, while before it was a higher priority than being innovative and pushing the boundaries of tonality, etc. The reason they avoided before was the fear of sounding ugly, and why the tritone was generally avoided, and chromaticism.


Beauty can be found also in the ugly. This was first discovered by the "les poetes maudites" such as Baudelaire, Rimbaud etc. who started writing poems about death, about decay, about pain. The same happened in music, but some listeners could not follow the development. The want music to sound nice, melodic. But music does not need to sound nice and melodic, it can sound "ugly", disonant, atonal and yet be interesting and beautiful. Music does not need to depict only nice emotions such as joy, uplifting feelings, harmony, but can also depict anxiety, depression, chaos. Some people do not want it and cannot appreciate it.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Jacck said:


> Beauty can be found also in the ugly. This was first discovered by the "les poetes maudites" such as Baudelaire, Rimbaud etc. who started writing poems about death, about decay, about pain. The same happened in music, but some listeners could not follow the development. The want music to sound nice, melodic. But music does not need to sound nice and melodic, it can sound "ugly", disonant, atonal and yet be interesting and beautiful. Music does not need to depict only nice emotions such as joy, uplifting feelings, harmony, but can also depict anxiety, depression, chaos. Some people do not want it and cannot appreciate it.


I think that is still putting a limit on music. I feel Prokofiev is beautiful in all his disonnance, but not Webern. Although Bruckner is quite tonal, I can find his music ugly. But I find all of these interesting, just not all beautiful. Some Modern composers who don't fit a mould of beauty will get overlooked, even if their music is well-crafted.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

Phil loves classical said:


> I think that is still putting a limit on music. I feel Prokofiev is beautiful in all his disonnance, but not Webern. Although Bruckner is quite tonal, I can find his music ugly. But I find all of these interesting, just not all beautiful. Some Modern composers who don't fit a mould of beauty will get overlooked, even if their music is well-crafted.


20th century completely redefined what music is and means. Many people would not consider this to be even music, it has no melody, no rythm, it is more or less a collection of interesting sound effects. Yet it is a composition composed by a composer and if you listen to it, it can capture your attention and be interesting. I do not know why you find Webern ugly, I find some of his music quite accessible


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## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

There are times when Wagner's music sounds quite ugly to me in a heavy, overloud sort of way.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Jacck said:


> Beauty can be found also in the ugly. This was first discovered by the "les poetes maudites" such as Baudelaire, Rimbaud etc. who started writing poems about death, about decay, about pain. The same happened in music, but some listeners could not follow the development. The want music to sound nice, melodic. But music does not need to sound nice and melodic, it can sound "ugly", disonant, atonal and yet be interesting and beautiful. Music does not need to depict only nice emotions such as joy, uplifting feelings, harmony, but can also depict anxiety, depression, chaos. Some people do not want it and cannot appreciate it.


I cannot for the life of me understand why I would want to listen to music that, for the most part, expresses anxiety, depression or chaos unless a period of it was on purpose to accentuate a following period of melodic, beautiful music expressing joy, uplifting feelings and harmony such as perhaps in Beethoven's 6th Symphony.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Enthusiast said:


> Indeed, it has long seemed to me that beauty became more central to what composers wanted to do from Bartok onwards.


If so, I think they very much lost their way! But, actually, my guess is that more beauty than what had preceded was not on their minds.


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## ldiat (Jan 27, 2016)

Twitter: some one on twitter stated that Johannes Brahms and JS Bach were "over rated" and come over to the "Bach over rated club" i tweeted WHAT! i am going back to disagree strongly :devil:
ps i dont have any ugly music...


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

Bach, Mozart and Beethoven....


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

I originally thought Berg's operas consisted of ugly music, but on further saturation, I discovered this music is actually hauntingly beautiful once you get used to it.


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## BiscuityBoyle (Feb 5, 2018)

Much of my favorite music is dissonant and abrasive, so "ugly" to me means boring, and what bores me the most is bloated and watery British orchestral music (no names shall be named).


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

BiscuityBoyle said:


> Much of my favorite music is dissonant and abrasive, so "ugly" to me means boring, and what bores me the most is bloated and watery British orchestral music (no names shall be named).


+1 .


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## R3PL4Y (Jan 21, 2016)

The only composer that I have really found abrasive to my ear is Bax.


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## Capeditiea (Feb 23, 2018)

My own music is ugly. 

UGLY I TELL YOU! UGLY! 

but only on the outside.


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

Mine is Ugly all over


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## Capeditiea (Feb 23, 2018)

EddieRUKiddingVarese said:


> Mine is Ugly all over


awww come on now, don't say that... i am sure some really cute musician will make it cute... 

or counterbalance it. :3


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

[HR][/HR]


Capeditiea said:


> awww come on now, don't say that... i am sure some really cute musician will make it cute...
> 
> or counterbalance it. :3


I think Counterbalance might be the best option 
http://www.kompoz.com/music/collaboration/696455


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## Capeditiea (Feb 23, 2018)

EddieRUKiddingVarese said:


> [HR][/HR]
> 
> I think Counterbalance might be the best option
> http://www.kompoz.com/music/collaboration/696455


*nods, do you or the other two collaborators also have current93 (aka David Tibet) influences?


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

Capeditiea said:


> *nods, do you or the other two collaborators also have current93 (aka David Tibet) influences?


Yeah, I think that might sum it up


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

BiscuityBoyle said:


> *Much of my favorite music is dissonant and abrasive*, so "ugly" to me means boring, and what bores me the most is bloated and watery British orchestral music (no names shall be named).


Welcome to the TC "minority". :lol:


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## BiscuityBoyle (Feb 5, 2018)

hpowders said:


> Welcome to the TC "minority". :lol:


I'm probably in the minority in that minority as well, since I adore Mozart, Bach, Schumann, Chopin and many others from the classical canon (I played a lot of that stuff in my younger days as a Russian piano nerd, plus of course Rachmaninov). But at this point in my life I'm more into the 20th century, and I love other genres, be it post punk, electronic, African drum music etc, which tend to be harsh-sounding and percussive.

There's something truly repulsive about the soggy strings you get so much in non-modernist 20th century orchestral music, all the pieces called like The Pastoral Meadow by Sir Ernest James Fitzbottom or The Bucolic Symphony by Henry Wollop Smythe.

It's especially bad if they're trying to borrow some of Debussy's "impressionist" orchestration and "dreamy" atmosphere with none of his singularity, invention and harmonic innovation. You can torture me with that stuff.


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## Selby (Nov 17, 2012)

Oh subjectivity, you devil. You trickster, you.

I have heard everything that Anton Webern has composed. I've heard almost of everything Xenakis has composed - possibly everything, but I would have to double check. I only bring those two up because they were mentioned in this thread. I am intimately familiar with their bodies of work and recordings of it. I hear _only_ beauty. I will add Ravel, Kurtág, Grisey, and Hough to the _beauty_ list.


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

R3PL4Y said:


> The only composer that I have really found abrasive to my ear is Bax.


Wow! Even though I totally accept that different listeners have quite different tastes, the idea that Bax could sound abrasive really surprises me. I'll have to have a Bax evening to try to detect abrasiveness in his music.

I'm not sure that I know what constitutes 'ugly' music. If it is music that strikes me as ill-proportioned, congested, disharmonious and generally not engaging, then some Bruckner and some Reger meets those criteria.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

R3PL4Y said:


> The only composer that I have really found abrasive to my ear is Bax.





Pat Fairlea said:


> Wow! Even though I totally accept that different listeners have quite different tastes, the idea that Bax could sound abrasive really surprises me. I'll have to have a Bax evening to try to detect abrasiveness in his music.


There was a TC member who had famously wide tastes liking just about everything including noise music. He did say a few times that Bax was either the one composer of one of few composers he was "unable" to enjoy. I wonder what it is about Bax's music that can have that effect on people with very wide tastes.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

For most of my listening life I've been a listener of late 19th/early 20thC French and Russian music, but listening to Bax was my conduit to a better appreciation of music like that of Bruckner. To refer to his music as ugly or abrasive seems to me odd. 

Anyone troubled by Bruckner being 'dissonant' must be listening to some very tepid and dull music by comparison.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Phil loves classical said:


> The problem I see in that statement is many listeners will feel the need to find the music beautiful to appreciate it. If Beauty is the central goal in Modern composers and onwards, then they had failed for almost everyone, even for some of their fans, including me. Even if their music can be found beautiful to a few, their main goal is to find new ways of expression using different techniques. Beauty became a lower priority, while before it was a higher priority than being innovative and pushing the boundaries of tonality, etc. The reason they avoided before was the fear of sounding ugly, and why the tritone was generally avoided, and chromaticism.


Ugly and beauty are surely subjective qualities. One of my points was that since early in the 20th Century many composers were more focused on sounds than, say, tunes. Some in this thread are using discord as another word for ugly. But discord is an objective term and you would need to rule most classical music post 1800 as ugly if you equate the two terms. What I am getting here is that many use ugly to mean "I don't get it" - which is fair enough as a subjective view but seems to involve closing the mind rather than leaving open the possibility of "getting it" later - and, often, "I need a tune". Others - myself included - are experiencing dull music that is little better than pastiche as ugly.

Your disagreement with me is based on (a) the idea that many do not find much modern music beautiful (and therefore it can't be) and (b) the idea that composers are striving to find new ways to say things. The "a" argument doesn't mean that those who do find such modern music beautiful are wrong. It is merely a reference to the subjectivity of the judgement. The "b" argument (about what composers wanted to achieve) seems wrong to me. I do not think artists set out to find new ways to say things. I think they set out to tell interesting truths as they see them. Of course, truth can be "ugly" but great art has always sublimated the often ugly truth it springs from to produce something meaningful, satisfying and beautiful.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Enthusiast said:


> ...The "b" argument (about what composers wanted to achieve) seems wrong to me. I do not think artists set out to find new ways to say things. I think they set out to tell interesting truths as they see them. Of course, truth can be "ugly" but great art has always sublimated the often ugly truth it springs from to produce something meaningful, satisfying and beautiful.


Almost the entire change in classical music as the 20th Century progressed, much to my chagrin, was an attempt by composers to express music in a new way. That's pretty much a fact (think Schoenberg). There are always going to be some, as evidenced on this forum, who find something beautiful in even the most dissonant and 'ugly' music. IMO, the problem is that the general classical music going public for the most part does not and never will.

In the past, given the increasing competition of other music genres for the public attention, the gateway to classical music for those new to it has primarily been melody. Music that is highly dissonant or random in expression does not provide this gateway. Some people here insist that melody is still present in much of this music. Apparently, there are not enough people who agree to fill concert halls. Perhaps composers today are telling interesting truths as they see them. The problem is that they are using a language that relatively few can understand or appreciate.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

DaveM said:


> Almost the entire change in classical music as the 20th Century progressed, much to my chagrin, was an attempt by composers to express music in a new way. That's pretty much a fact (think Schoenberg). There are always going to be some, as evidenced on this forum, who find something beautiful in even the most dissonant and 'ugly' music. IMO, the problem is that the general classical music going public for the most part does not and never will.


I would not say they were find new ways to "express music" (sounds like breast milk) but that they have been finding ways - ways that are of necessity new - to say what they need to say. I think, also, you downplay how many people today do actually enjoy contemporary music. As with all classical music, it can be hard work at first. But, given a choice between exploring the 3rd rank of past composers and searching for the first rank of contemporary ones, I think there are a good few who go for the latter. Even more (sadly), tend to look down on older classical music in their "support for" the new. But there is an audience and there are plenty of established musicians who want to play the new to us.


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## Selby (Nov 17, 2012)

Post deleted. 

Sometimes my fingers get away from me. There is a defensive side that emerges when I feel the music I love is under siege. I apologize for my snarky post.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Of classical music listeners there seems to be a modest percentage of people who enjoy much modern/contemporary classical music immediately. Some other percentage learns over time to enjoy much modern/contemporary classical music, and a third group never really enjoys that music. I'm not really sure how large these percentages are. 

What I've learned from TC is that there are a group of people who love progressive rock (I think that's the correct term, but I might have it wrong) who are drawn to modern/contemporary classical music much more than earlier eras. From their posts I believe modern/contemporary classical music engages these people vastly more than earlier music. I'm not sure if they find modern music more interesting, more exciting, more beautiful, but they clearly like it much more.


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## Bluecrab (Jun 24, 2014)

BiscuityBoyle said:


> I'm probably in the minority in that minority as well, since I adore Mozart,...


If you adore Mozart, I'd say that places you squarely with the majority of members here. But that's just my personal, anecdotal impression.


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## CnC Bartok (Jun 5, 2017)

Poulenc is lovely!


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

If one is worried about ugliness, hearing it everywhere when it may be misinterpreted or mislabeled, then here's what some would call beauty. Or is there something false and manipulative about it like a soporific? Without one posting actual examples of what's considered ugly or beauty to be commonly considered, then what use is this thread? It becomes all about the words and not one's reactions to sound. Sometimes there can be something beneath the surface of beauty or ugliness waiting to be discovered and it might be the opposite of what it seems.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Larkenfield said:


> If one is worried about ugliness, hearing it everywhere when it may be misinterpreted or mislabeled, then here's what some would call beauty. Or is there something false and manipulative about it like a soporific? Without one posting actual examples of what's considered ugly or beauty to be commonly considered, then what use is this thread? It becomes all about the words and not one's reactions to sound. Sometimes there can be something beneath the surface of beauty or ugliness waiting to be discovered.


This is the sort of music that my father would play to show off his monaural 'Hi-Fi' system with a big single 14 inch speaker in a custom made furniture type enclosure. Meanwhile, I would be in my room listening to Beethoven piano concertos on an old hand-me-down record player. I never found his music ugly -maybe bland is the word.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Larkenfield said:


> If one is worried about ugliness, hearing it everywhere when it may be misinterpreted or mislabeled, then here's what some would call beauty. Or is there something false and manipulative about it like a soporific? Without one posting actual examples of what's considered ugly or beauty to be commonly considered, then what use is this thread? It becomes all about the words and not one's reactions to sound. Sometimes there can be something beneath the surface of beauty or ugliness waiting to be discovered.


This brings back a memory. As a teenager I would visit my aunt Jane, who had a better-sounding stereo than I, to listen to my classical records. One day I was listening to the first act of Tristan und Isolde when she came through the living room and asked, "How can you stand that music?" Aunt Jane, as I recall, liked Mantovani, the Las Vegas Rat Pack, and Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme.

What, really, could I have said in reply?


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

Klavierstück X by Stockhausen would be a rare example of music I'll always find ugly. Kudos to anyone who can listen to this and get some form of enjoyment or stimulating experience out of it.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> This brings back a memory. As a teenager I would visit my aunt Jane, who had a better-sounding stereo than I, to listen to my classical records. One day I was listening to the first act of Tristan und Isolde when she came through the living room and asked, "How can you stand that music?" Aunt Jane, as I recall, liked Mantovani, the Las Vegas Rat Pack, and Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme.
> 
> What, really, could I have said in reply?


Vinyl record collectors can easily make a list, including: Mantovani, Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme, Ray Conniff, Mitch Miller, Ezio Pinza, Perry Como, Johnny Mathis, the Lettermen, the Kingston Trio, Peter, Paul and Mary, Barbra Streisand, cast albums of The Sound of Music and South Pacific, Lawrence Welk, Robert Goulet, Andy Williams, Petula Clark, and every Christmas album imaginable. These make up a large part of the dregs of every pile of LPs that have been picked over to a fare thee well in every Salvation Army or Goodwill thrift.

I've often thought about what it is that causes this particular music to sink to the bottom, as much of it is very well performed, and certainly not "ugly". To the contrary, most of it is quite pretty, and smooth, comfortable, familiar and reassuring. In fact, I think that's the problem with it. After hearing this music ceaselessly over the years, eventually there comes a time, at least for some of us, when the ears want to be challenged by something new and exciting, with more of an edge.

The situation isn't much different with classical music. In fact, a few classical standbys, such as Handel's Messiah, E. Power Biggs Organ Favorites, and volumes from the Funk and Wagnalls Family Library of Great Music, sometimes make it into the dregs too. This is one reason I know that for all the hue and cry here at TC about how modern music is ugly, atonal music is ugly, Romantic music is better than anything which followed it, Schoenberg, or Cage, or Stockhausen, or Boulez, or Ligeti, or Reich, or Glass, or Part, or take your pick, ruined music, composers should write music like Mozart, the 20th century was bad for music, etc., etc., views of that kind will never prevail in the end. The human ear does not want to be soothed with the familiar and charmed by the pretty, at least not all the time. The proof is in the thrift store record bins.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Enthusiast said:


> Ugly and beauty are surely subjective qualities. One of my points was that since early in the 20th Century many composers were more focused on sounds than, say, tunes. Some in this thread are using discord as another word for ugly. But discord is an objective term and you would need to rule most classical music post 1800 as ugly if you equate the two terms. What I am getting here is that many use ugly to mean "I don't get it" - which is fair enough as a subjective view but seems to involve closing the mind rather than leaving open the possibility of "getting it" later - and, often, "I need a tune". Others - myself included - are experiencing dull music that is little better than pastiche as ugly.
> 
> Your disagreement with me is based on (a) the idea that many do not find much modern music beautiful (and therefore it can't be) and (b) the idea that composers are striving to find new ways to say things. The "a" argument doesn't mean that those who do find such modern music beautiful are wrong. It is merely a reference to the subjectivity of the judgement. The "b" argument (about what composers wanted to achieve) seems wrong to me. I do not think artists set out to find new ways to say things. I think they set out to tell interesting truths as they see them. Of course, truth can be "ugly" but great art has always sublimated the often ugly truth it springs from to produce something meaningful, satisfying and beautiful.


I don't think beauty or good taste in music is that subjective, just like in writing. I read somewhere in common practice music, the music shouldn't leap to certain larger intervals, etc. In a line, otherwise it sounds ugly. Certain intervals just sound ugly, but because of some of these rules music was less free. By expanding what a composer can do then you trade pleasant music for more variety and freedom. 
The beauty in modern music is beneath the surface. There is interesting and uninteresting ugly music, and there is dull and interesting pretty music.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Phil loves classical said:


> Certain intervals just sound ugly ....


The funny thing is, our ears can acclimate to different sounds and have very different ideas about what sounds pretty or ugly. Non-western music, with non-western scales and intervals, likely will sound strange to our ears, and in many instances ugly or at least dissonant. But that is because our ears are accustomed to different scales and intervals. There is certainly nothing natural or inevitable about the Western equal-tempered scale.
In early formal Western music, only unisons or octaves were considered consonant. Then, perfect fifths were allowed, and finally thirds, which allowed the development of modern harmony. The equal-tempered scale only became universal in the mid-19th century, largely due to the development of the modern piano and an agreement reached between various German and then American piano manufacturers.

And what is "common practice" in one era becomes "historical practice" and fodder for musicologists eventually.


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## Mood Drifter (Apr 11, 2018)

For me? A lot of stuff that's associated with modernism and since. The 20th century seemed to be the entry point of art and music that is just intentionally ugly, or pokes fun of beauty. You can't top 19th century classical for what it was, so you tangent off into more questionable things like serialism, atonalism, non-instruments, and the like, to be appreciated as moving the art form forward again. Philip Glass is a major suspect of course, even "writing" an orchestra piece that's nothing but a set amount of total silence, and you have a right to feel that is stupid and pointless. And I can't stand it when they make the strings sound like frantic screeching nails on a chalkboard (I'm looking right at you, Kaija Saariaho).

Of course a lot of thoroughly classical pieces are to me kind of "bland", but that's another topic.


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## Mood Drifter (Apr 11, 2018)

As for "good taste" and that whole can of worms: opinions are not facts, we are entitled to have them, but it's hogwash to think my opinion of classical as as worthwhile as that of the conducter of the London Symphony Orchestra. And it's hogwash to think a 6 year old kid whose favorite song is the Power Rangers theme, is on the level with me in terms of classical music opinion.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

fluteman said:


> The funny thing is, our ears can acclimate to different sounds and have very different ideas about what sounds pretty or ugly. Non-western music, with non-western scales and intervals, likely will sound strange to our ears, and in many instances ugly or at least dissonant. But that is because our ears are accustomed to different scales and intervals. There is certainly nothing natural or inevitable about the Western equal-tempered scale.
> In early formal Western music, only unisons or octaves were considered consonant. Then, perfect fifths were allowed, and finally thirds, which allowed the development of modern harmony. The equal-tempered scale only became universal in the mid-19th century, largely due to the development of the modern piano and an agreement reached between various German and then American piano manufacturers.
> 
> And what is "common practice" in one era becomes "historical practice" and fodder for musicologists eventually.


True to a certain extent. It depends on the usage. But in atonal music, the usage is more ugly and unnatural. Even Schoenberg admitted this later on. My point is there is nothing wrong with ugly music, just have to dig deeper. But to call it beautiful is not constructive in my view. i think a big part of the music is to hear it for its own sake, and not based on our biases.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

fluteman said:


> Vinyl record collectors can easily make a list, including: Mantovani, Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme, Ray Conniff, Mitch Miller, Ezio Pinza, Perry Como, Johnny Mathis, the Lettermen, the Kingston Trio, Peter, Paul and Mary, Barbra Streisand, cast albums of The Sound of Music and South Pacific, Lawrence Welk, Robert Goulet, Andy Williams, Petula Clark, and every Christmas album imaginable. These make up a large part of the dregs of every pile of LPs that have been picked over to a fare thee well in every Salvation Army or Goodwill thrift.
> 
> I've often thought about what it is that causes this particular music to sink to the bottom, as much of it is very well performed, and certainly not "ugly". To the contrary, most of it is quite pretty, and smooth, comfortable, familiar and reassuring. In fact, I think that's the problem with it. After hearing this music ceaselessly over the years, eventually there comes a time, at least for some of us, when the ears want to be challenged by something new and exciting, with more of an edge.
> 
> The human ear does not want to be soothed with the familiar and charmed by the pretty, at least not all the time. The proof is in the thrift store record bins.


The human ear, in general, wants both the familiar and the new, the soothing and the stimulating. How much of either extreme it wants depends both on what we're used to and on the intangible thing I just call, for convenience, temperament. Some of us are dissatisfied by the Classical period because the endless proliferation of tonic and dominant triads doesn't stimulate us and becomes irritating. Others are dissatisfed by atonality because the constant dissonance which never resolves except to similar dissonance stimulates us without relief, which results in irritation rather than pleasure. Some of us will never enjoy music at one extreme or both, while others can learn either to hear the harmonic languages differently or to find other qualities in the music that compensate us for what we miss.

Maybe the piles of old popular music in thrift stores indicate that the human ear wants something more interesting, but I suspect it indicates only that that music was in fact very popular with the human ears of its day, and that the ears of the next generation had their own popular pablum to listen to and cleaned out their parents basements.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

You don't find much In the way of Schoenberg et al in thrift store bins likely because so few records were sold to begin with.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

DaveM said:


> You don't find much In the way of Schoenberg et al in thrift store bins likely because so few records were sold to begin with.


Ouch.......................................


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

^ But then again, you find plenty of Engelbert Humperdinck (Arnold Dorsey) in those bins, which does not means its any good........


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> The human ear, in general, wants both the familiar and the new, the soothing and the stimulating. How much of either extreme it wants depends both on what we're used to and on the intangible thing I just call, for convenience, temperament. Some of us are dissatisfied by the Classical period because the endless proliferation of tonic and dominant triads doesn't stimulate us and becomes irritating. Others are dissatisfed by atonality because the constant dissonance which never resolves except to similar dissonance stimulates us without relief, which results in irritation rather than pleasure. Some of us will never enjoy music at one extreme or both, while others can learn either to hear the harmonic languages differently or to find other qualities in the music that compensate us for what we miss.
> 
> Maybe the piles of old popular music in thrift stores indicate that the human ear wants something more interesting, but I suspect it indicates only that that music was in fact very popular with the human ears of its day, and that the ears of the next generation had their own popular pablum to listen to and cleaned out their parents basements.


Yes, good points
Every generation wants it's own popular music. But some music from the 50s and 60s is more durable than the chart toppers I listed. Nat Cole. Bob Dylan. The Beatles. Billie Holiday. Not a coincidence, I think


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

Mood Drifter said:


> Philip Glass is a major suspect of course, even "writing" an orchestra piece that's nothing but a set amount of total silence, and you have a right to feel that is stupid and pointless.


This is either a factual error or a really clever way to take the standard-issue cheap shot at John Cage's _4' 33"_ without mentioning either the composer or the work!



Mood Drifter said:


> You can't top 19th century classical for what it was, so you tangent off ...


In fairness though, the 19th century composers couldn't top _18th_ century classical for what _it_ was, and the 18th century composers couldn't top _17th_ century classical for what _it_ was, etc etc...


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## Tristan (Jan 5, 2013)

"Ugly" isn't really a term I use to describe music. Music can be off-putting to me for various reasons, but "ugliness" isn't one of them.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Actually, records of Boulez, Stockhausen, Varese, Feldman, Sobotnik et al. often sell at a big premium due to their relative rarity. Schoenberg records are more common and do show up at the thrift stores.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

fluteman said:


> ...Schoenberg records are more common and do show up at the thrift stores.


Probably because they never got listened to.


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## St Matthew (Aug 26, 2017)

Tristan said:


> "Ugly" isn't really a term I use to describe music. Music can be off-putting to me for various reasons, but "ugliness" isn't one of them.


I absolutely agree, music is not quantifiable as things in the visual world music operates in a different field with different tools and a different smorgasbord. Calling music "beautiful" or "ugly" is completely inane (outside of using it as a witty, humorous metaphor)


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## St Matthew (Aug 26, 2017)

fluteman said:


> Actually, records of Boulez, Stockhausen, Varese, Feldman, Sobotnik et al. often sell at a big premium due to their relative rarity. Schoenberg records are more common and do show up at the thrift stores.


Which is why I love thrift stores so much, you can find amazing bargains there. Sometimes you can find those great rare copies of aforementioned composers, which is damn awesome!

Funny that you'll find commonly the CDs that end up in places are from someone that recently died and the family doesn't like the music so they put it the only place they know (instead of bothering with ebay or online trading)


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## Selby (Nov 17, 2012)

Keep obsessing.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

St Matthew said:


> Which is why I love thrift stores so much, you can find amazing bargains there. Sometimes you can find those great rare copies of aforementioned composers, which is damn awesome!
> 
> Funny that you'll find commonly the CDs that end up in places are from someone that recently died and the family doesn't like the music so they put it the only place they know (instead of bothering with ebay or online trading)


My best thrift store find was an original 1953 two-box 6-LP American Decca set of the Well Tempered Clavier by Rosalyn Tureck, with both boxes autographed by Ms. Tureck, all in near-perfect condition. I got it for free along with many other classical LPs in exchange for helping the owner move several crates of LPs out of a storage facility down the street from his store. He considered all classical pretty much worthless, but any Beatles LP would cost you a minimum of $20.


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