# Kyle Gann: The Complexity Issue



## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

I think this is a very thoughtful essay on the dreaded "modern music problem." Most people here will disagree with some things in it but I think the basic approach is right.



> I'm going to try to clarify the musical complexity issue. What we have now, left over from the previous post, is what I'll call the [David] Byrne argument: that a lot of incomprehensible, audience-alienating music has been written out of a kind of reverse elitism - and what I'll call the Nonken argument (after superb pianist Marilyn Nonken, who wrote in): that there's a lot of difficult, complex music that will never appeal to a wide audience, but it has its admirers, and they should be allowed to have it. On the face of it, these assertions both seem obviously true, and you'll notice they don't even contradict each other. But each of them comes with an assumed, unstated backside, a flipside, that is more questionable, and I'm going to see if I can dissociate those flip sides from the assertions themselves.


It goes on from there, and doesn't take long to read: http://www.kylegann.com/PC080723-Complexity.html


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

I don't disagree with most of what he says, and maybe you "had to be there," but on the forums I've been on, I've rarely if ever seen people correlate complexity with value directly. Do I value lots of complex music? Of course. Do I value it specifically because of its complexity? I don't think so.

Also, I don't understand (and I've seen him bring this up before, I think?) why there should be any correlation between total chromaticism and a certain mood or emotion. Any good composer will be able to express a variety of things with their methods, and the 12-tone method is no exception at all. There's nothing of fear or anxiety in the wistful Song without Words from Schoenberg's Serenade or the serene ending of Webern's Cantata No. 2.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

It seems to me that he's talking more about what he calls the "flipside": no one says they value music just for being complex, but when someone criticizes a complex piece - maybe even criticizes it for being needlessly complex - some people get defensive and act as though all complex music is under attack. I think that's a real dynamic.

Apparently I should have given this thread a more inflammatory title, no one's reading it.


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

isorhythm said:


> I think this is a very thoughtful essay on the dreaded "modern music problem." Most people here will disagree with some things in it but I think the basic approach is right.


Thanks for the read, it was interesting. Tbh though, the first sentence made me laugh right at the get-go.


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

Mahlerian said:


> Any good composer will be able to express a variety of things with their methods, and the 12-tone method is no exception at all. There's nothing of fear or anxiety in the wistful Song without Words from Schoenberg's Serenade or the serene ending of Webern's Cantata No. 2.


It's sad that you can make perfectly reasonable statements like this, yet oftentimes a storm blows up in your face for doing it. Gann, like many others, seems to be out of touch with just how we describe our musical experiences.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

isorhythm said:


> Most people here will disagree with some things in it but I think the basic approach is right.
> 
> http://www.kylegann.com/PC080723-Complexity.html


Actually based of the results of some recent polls and the activities in others threads I think that the majority of the members here would agree with it. The ones who disagree with it are in the minority here, they know it and it is driving them nuts.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

arpeggio said:


> Actually based of the results of some recent polls and the activities in others threads I think that the majority of the members here would agree with it. The ones who disagree with it are in the minority here, they know it and it is driving them nuts.


I expect some disagreement from a lot of different perspectives, not just modern music haters. For example, Mahlerian's point about 12-tone music and anxiety, which I partly agree with. I do think that highly chromatic non-tonal idioms are _better_ at expressing anxiety, dislocation, etc than they are at expressing, say, joy. But they can also express other things, especially awestruck or numinous states (Leonard Bernstein makes this point in his Harvard lectures).

Stockhausen's _Gruppen_, one of Gann's examples, has never suggested anxiety to me.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

isorhythm said:


> I expect some disagreement from a lot of different perspectives, not just modern music haters. For example, Mahlerian's point about 12-tone music and anxiety, which I partly agree with. I do think that highly chromatic non-tonal idioms are _better_ at expressing anxiety, dislocation, etc than they are at expressing, say, joy. But they can also express other things, especially awestruck or numinous states (Leonard Bernstein makes this point in his Harvard lectures).
> 
> Stockhausen's _Gruppen_, one of Gann's examples, has never suggested anxiety to me.


Check out this old post of mine: http://www.talkclassical.com/25847-tips-help-appreciate-atonal.html?highlight=lulu#post468828


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