# What elements of music are you most attracted to in a piece of music



## violadude

Since the thread about what makes a composer's music great blew up and became a lot of bickering, I offer to purpose the question this way in a slightly altered version of the original question and I think this will give truckload more of the types of answers he was looking for.

This allows people to share their personal experience with what they consider to be great music, rather than trying to guess at what objectively great music (if there is such a thing) might be.

So if you are listening to a piece of music what kinds of things about it make the most impact on you? Does it depend on the genre? Is there a standard that you hold all music up to?


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## Polednice

I think it does depend on the genre, but generally speaking the two things that pull me in most are interesting harmonic progressions (I'm less fussed about individual harmonies - more about where they lead), and strong thematic material that is extensively developed in a variety of ways while still being fundamentally recognisable. I prefer the development to be quite tight as well - not ideas that are run with, but ideas that are stuck to.


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## Guest

I don't think you can control the way threads go, and if you have people who are diametrically opposed, with no common ground, you will generate some heat in any thread, regardless.

That was the prolegomena. Next is the prelude.

I do not consider greatness one way or the other while I'm listening. I have preferences, which I can think about when I'm not listening. Well, I can think about them while, but it's a distraction. I try to have as few distractions as possible.

Now for the answer to violadude's question.

What makes the most impact on me at first is the totality of the experience. On subsequent listens, I might attend more carefully to things like form or development, especially if those elements seem to have been important to the composer. But at first and also principally, I listen to everything at once as it happens, savoring each event and each element as it happens. Part of this is just who I am; part of it is a discipline. I write about music, so when I'm covering a concert, I need to be on the qui vive. A lifetime of listening largely to music (and even to types of music) that I've never heard before helps. 

Perhaps the most important element for me is the sound itself, the sensual experience of sound waves making my ear drums vibrate and all the other stuff that goes on when sound waves get going.

In older musics, I've noticed that I respond most noticably to modulations, making composers like Schubert and Berlioz some of my favorites. When I first started listening to twentieth century music, I was aware of strong reactions to asymmetry, to asymmetrical rhythms and to asymmetrical (unpredictable) pitch movement. (Also good for enjoying Berlioz, come to think about it.) I remember a time when pieces would disappoint me if they did not have these elements pretty prominently. An insatiable hunger for new music helped me overcome that limitation (just as an insatiable hunger for more Janáček got me over my dislike of opera). I also favored complexity, then, and liked a lot of very dense and busy music, but years of personal contact with Cage and with his philosophy and with his music pushed me beyond that boundary as well.

I have a real thirst for extremely sparse music now, for small events isolated in a vast space of silence, but that doesn't keep me from loving all the other things I've ever loved. Thank God. And while I enjoy a range of music from extremely simple to extremely complex, from extremely quiet to extremely loud (thank you Nile for my tinnitus*), from extremely boisterous to extremely calm, I cannot get very enthusiastic about what I call rudimentary music (to distinguish it from simple). That includes much of what I would call pop.

So am I back in the band?

*Wear your prophylactics, kiddos!!


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## Dodecaplex

Fugues and counterpoint and polyphony.


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## science

Not sure how to rank these things, but - 

- virtuosity 
- emotion - but sometimes this can be too intense for my tastes
- clever manipulation of motifs and melodic variation 
- harmony/timbre (that is, the sound itself at a given moment) - this is what I personally usually mean by "beauty"
- rhythm

Edit: 

- just plain pretty melody
- novelty, anything surprising (sometimes more or less)


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## tdc

It depends on my mood...sometimes I want to be moved in a simple nostalgic way, sometimes I like to be challenged. One of the greatest feelings for me is feeling like a piece of music has expanded me in some way - enhanced my understanding of the capabilities of music itself, or partially illuminated something hidden within the subconscious realm of my psyche.


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## violadude

science said:


> - emotion - but sometimes this can be too intense for my tastes


This made me curious haha. Can you give examples of composers or pieces that are too intense for you?


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## science

violadude said:


> This made me curious haha. Can you give examples of composers or pieces that are too intense for you?


Brahms gets really close to the edge, but what I'm really thinking of in this case isn't classical music but some of country, pop, or new age music. I can't stand music that is sentimental without even the slightest edge of satire or cynicism.

For example, in country music, I like George Jones' "He Stopped Loving Her Today" because, to me, it has a nice sharp edge of cynicism, self-mockery. He knows what he's doing, he does it very well, and he thinks it's funny. I don't like "Butterfly Kisses" because it is so genuinely, authentically naive in a way that I can't believe - it feels fake. Right on the edge is Garth Brooks' "The Dance." If it were any sweeter, I'd have to reject it, but it mentions pain just enough for me to accept it.

I'll put some thought into the classical music side of it. Off the top of my head I haven't been able to think of any classical music that is just too sweet for me. Obviously some crossover stuff, but that's too easy and anyway I also think some of that stuff is pretty good.


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## Kopachris

Motivic development and emotional content, mostly.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

Counterpoint first and orchestration second. It's the main reason why I rarely listen to Chopin's piano concertos.


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## violadude

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Counterpoint first and orchestration second. It's the main reason why I rarely listen to Chopin's piano concertos.


Are those the only elements that are important to you? Or are they just the first two in your rank?


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

violadude said:


> Are those the only elements that are important to you? Or are they just the first two in your rank?


They are the first two in my rank.


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## Thonolan

It depends on a number of things, but trying to summarize...

- Development of the different parts of the composition and the "flow" between them.
- Timbre.
- Mood and emotional content.


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## emiellucifuge

For me its an inseparable relationship between form and content.

A chord is an example of content, but is only interesting in the overall structure due its relations to other chords, for this reason one could argue that form is more important. However, no matter the proficiency of form, if the content is rubbish the piece will be too.

The same goes for melody, rhythm, counterpoint, orchestration the whole lot.

/my lame answer


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## NightHawk

Your statements re Form and Content are not lame. I was going in that direction when I read your post - I cannot separate rhythm, harmony and melody - I mean how do you separate out your favorite single concept from a work, say the _Ruhevoll_ from Mahler's 4th Symphony? These concepts and others (e.g. counterpoint and orchestration) all work together as symbiotically connected as an organism of many systems. I'm fierce on counterpoint, but it has to be swathed in all the other concepts to be musically interesting.



emiellucifuge said:


> For me its an unseparable relationship between form and content.
> 
> A chord is an example of content, but is only interesting in the overall structure due its relations to other chords, for this reason one could argue that form is more important. However, no matter the proficiency of form, if the content is rubbish the piece will be too.
> 
> The same goes for melody, rhythm, counterpoint, orchestration the whole lot.
> 
> /my lame answer


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## Cnote11

Timbre, and I like polyrhythms and great harmony a lot as well. Also, unexpected orchestration, such as using instruments in different ways than usual, extended techniques, pairing them with different instruments than usual, etc. I've also been known to like a good concept.


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## emiellucifuge

Quite,

I think many listeners dont realise the importance of orchestration and rhythm to form and vice versa, considering form to be solely concerned with tonalities and melody. Much atonal music is interesting because of its focus on these other parameters in its structural design. Its fantastic if you enjoy Ravel and are attracted to his music because of how he uses instrumental timbres, but why not take the next step and listen to music where timbre is a key organisational principle such as Le Marteau Sans Maitre. Oh dear - Ive lost my grasp on this post, but ill let it stand.

The reason I condescended my previous post is because I didnt want to be 'that guy' who didnt play along with the threads rules.


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## violadude

emiellucifuge said:


> Quite,
> 
> I think many listeners dont realise the importance of orchestration and rhythm to form and vice versa, considering form to be solely concerned with tonalities and melody. Much atonal music is interesting because of its focus on these other parameters in its structural design. Its fantastic if you enjoy Ravel and are attracted to his music because of how he uses instrumental timbres, but why not take the next step and listen to music where timbre is a key organisational principle such as Le Marteau Sans Maitre. Oh dear - Ive lost my grasp on this post, but ill let it stand.
> 
> The reason I condescended my previous post is because I didnt want to be 'that guy' who didnt play along with the threads rules.


That's ok. You still answered the question with what you believe. That's all I care about.


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## neoshredder

Beauty, excitement, colourful, memorable, and etc.


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## Philip

emiellucifuge said:


> form and content.


Ahhh yes, form vs content; the most interesting topic in art.


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## Guest

neoshredder said:


> Beauty, excitement, colourful, memorable, and etc.


Now now, play fair neo. violadude asked for qualities of the music that you enjoy. These words reference your enjoyment, not the music.

What elements of _music_ do you find to be beautiful? Which elements excite you? What are you able to remember? and etc.


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## Guest

Philip said:


> Ahhh yes, form vs content; the most interesting topic in art.


Hahaha, yes. Versus.

Skeleton versus musculature!! The great anatomical controversy!!

I wonder who first thought of separating out the inextricable elements of an integrated system and then pitting them against each other? I just want to punch that person in the face. I wonder, though, are my bones more important in that situation or my muscles?

And the debate rages on, woo hoo!!!


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## Argus

Saxophone solos.


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## emiellucifuge

Philip said:


> Ahhh yes, form vs content; the most interesting topic in art.


Well the reason I posted was to dismiss such a debate as nonsense, as each is symbiotically essential to the other.


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## bigshot

Eloquence, Expression, Structure and Variety.

Eloquence is how well and idea is expressed. Expression is the fact that an idea is communicated at all. Structure is the form the idea takes, and Variety is the contrasts that accent the various facets of the idea and point to it.

Craftsmanship issues would be next in line after those.


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## neoshredder

some guy said:


> Now now, play fair neo. violadude asked for qualities of the music that you enjoy. These words reference your enjoyment, not the music.
> 
> What elements of _music_ do you find to be beautiful? Which elements excite you? What are you able to remember? and etc.


I can give you composer names for each enjoyment. Beauty: Debussy, Corelli, Faure, Chopin, Bach, Ravel... 
Excitement: Vivaldi, Mozart, CPE Bach...
Colourful: Stravinsky, Bartok, Schnittke, and basically those mentioned with Beauty. 
Memorable: Vivaldi, Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Wagner, and many more.


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## bigshot

emiellucifuge said:


> Well the reason I posted was to dismiss such a debate as nonsense, as each is symbiotically essential to the other.


I don't know about that. I've seen plenty of movies that fulfill the requirements of having a beginning, middle and end, but they still don't have anything to say. There's also plenty of music on the radio that have notes, a basic pop music structure and rhythm, but they're empty as outer space.


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## bigshot

neoshredder said:


> I can give you composer names for each enjoyment. Beauty: Debussy, Corelli, Faure, Chopin, Bach, Ravel...
> Excitement: Vivaldi, Mozart, CPE Bach...
> Colourful: Stravinsky, Bartok, Schnittke, and basically those mentioned with Beauty.
> Memorable: Vivaldi, Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Wagner, and many more.


I understand the first three... but what qualities make something "memorable"?


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## Argus

bigshot said:


> I don't know about that. I've seen plenty of movies that fulfill the requirements of having a beginning, middle and end, but they still don't have anything to say. There's also plenty of music on the radio that have notes, a basic pop music structure and rhythm, but they're empty as outer space.


In your opinion.


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## bigshot

Oh! So now music DOES have content! You're wiggling around on your arguments like a nightcrawler!


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## violadude

Argus said:


> In your opinion.


Well since this thread is all about opinions, we can assume that's what he meant


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## Cnote11

If we're stating opinions then may I add that Vivaldi rules!


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## violadude

Cnote11 said:


> If we're stating opinions then may I add that Vivaldi rules!


Of course


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## Argus

bigshot said:


> Oh! So now music DOES have content! You're wiggling around on your arguments like a nightcrawler!


Are you talking to me? If you are, you'll have to explain to me why you said that in response to me telling you what you said was your opinion.

Music does have content: *the sounds*. When did I say any different?


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## neoshredder

bigshot said:


> I understand the first three... but what qualities make something "memorable"?


Easy to remember. Melodic.


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## HarpsichordConcerto

some guy said:


> Now now, play fair neo. violadude asked for qualities of the music that you enjoy. These words reference your enjoyment, not the music.
> 
> What elements of _music_ do you find to be beautiful? Which elements excite you? What are you able to remember? and etc.





some guy said:


> Hahaha, yes. Versus.
> 
> Skeleton versus musculature!! The great anatomical controversy!!
> 
> I wonder who first thought of separating out the inextricable elements of an integrated system and then pitting them against each other? I just want to punch that person in the face. I wonder, though, are my bones more important in that situation or my muscles?
> 
> And the debate rages on, woo hoo!!!


When I read the posts by members _neoshredder_ and _Philip_, I understood what they meant. You apparently did not. As usual, you answered with pedantry and semantics, and of course, your priceless "advice". Do you honestly think most of us here give two cents worth of thoughts in the longer run after reading your posts on how that affects our listening?


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## Guest

neoshredder said:


> I can give you composer names for each enjoyment. Beauty: Debussy, Corelli, Faure, Chopin, Bach, Ravel...
> Excitement: Vivaldi, Mozart, CPE Bach...
> Colourful: Stravinsky, Bartok, Schnittke, and basically those mentioned with Beauty.
> Memorable: Vivaldi, Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Wagner, and many more.


Well, that's not what I had in mind. I had in mind you doing the work of explaining.

But since I know all these people very well, I can figure it all out for myself. Pretty well.

I'm so lazy, though....:lol:


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## Guest

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> Do you honestly think most of us here give two cents worth of thoughts in the longer run after reading your posts on how that affects our listening?


Well, I have come to the conclusion that I would not give two cents for your churlish attacks. In fact, I want two cents from you for your attacking me! Where's my money?:lol:

(You apparently do not know yourself that my remarks that were based on Philip's post were not directed _at_ Philip. A better sense of semantics would have helped you out, there. [N.B., it's a discussion. Discussions are carried out with words. All discussions are matters of semantics.])


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## Dodecaplex

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> Do you honestly think most of us here give two cents worth of thoughts in the longer run after reading your posts on how that affects our listening?


I do. So does Cnote11, I think. As well as many others.

some guy's posts are usually among the most interesing posts in this forum, and he is second only to the Great Elgarian.


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## kv466

*What elements of music are you most attracted to in a piece of music*

Tension and despair.


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## Cnote11

Some guy was not attacking anybody, just giving his opinion on a general topic. There isn't anything wrong with that whatsoever. I also think his post toward neoshredder was fair play. The reason being that what constitutes beauty for one person may be completely different from another persons perception. People take things a little too seriously on this board.


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## Cnote11

Let's not derail violadude's lovely thread and instead continue on. I must say that I agree with some guy in that I enjoy sparse things. In fact I was going to write that I enjoy the use of silence and space in composition and as I was scrolling down I saw his post. I do differ from him that I do like a ton of pop music, this ranging from most art rock genres like RIO to obscure electronic genres all the way to radio pop, but the radio pop I prefer is typically of the foreign kind,, etc. etc. I enjoy every genre out there I've heard and I've yet to find one I don't. There are genres I don't like as much as other ones, but I find that every one has something worthwhile. I find it all tickles me in different ways. I'm also a big fan of drones and repeating figures that evolve over the length of a composition. I find them to be very hypnotizing and I hardly am aware of all the time that has passed while listening. I also like heavily "textured" music and I also enjoy a lot of complexity, virtuoso playing, and unconventional playing as I posted earlier. I just enjoy exploring possibilities of sound. Sound is my love! I'll leave the phone off the hook just to hear the dial tone. Sometimes I feel like a small child who is just easily entertained by stimuli. Saying that, and it is pretty obvious, I enjoy hearing "unmusical" (as in sounds that aren't found in a musical context typically) integrated into my music.


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## Philip

some guy said:


> Hahaha, yes. Versus.
> 
> Skeleton versus musculature!! The great anatomical controversy!!
> 
> I wonder who first thought of separating out the inextricable elements of an integrated system and then pitting them against each other? I just want to punch that person in the face. I wonder, though, are my bones more important in that situation or my muscles?
> 
> And the debate rages on, woo hoo!!!


Well, i wasn't being sarcastic. I really think form and content is a legitimate way to look at art, literature... but i see that _some_ people aren't comfortable with the academic approach to the creative process.


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## violadude

Cnote11 said:


> Let's not derail violadude's lovely thread and instead continue on. I must say that I agree with some guy in that I enjoy sparse things. In fact I was going to write that I enjoy the use of silence and space in composition and as I was scrolling down I saw his post. I do differ from him that I do like a ton of pop music, this ranging from most art rock genres like RIO to obscure electronic genres all the way to radio pop, but the radio pop I prefer is typically of the foreign kind,, etc. etc. I enjoy every genre out there I've heard and I've yet to find one I don't. There are genres I don't like as much as other ones, but I find that every one has something worthwhile. I find it all tickles me in different ways. I'm also a big fan of drones and repeating figures that evolve over the length of a composition. I find them to be very hypnotizing and I hardly am aware of all the time that has passed while listening. I also like heavily "textured" music and I also enjoy a lot of complexity, virtuoso playing, and unconventional playing as I posted earlier. I just enjoy exploring possibilities of sound. Sound is my love! I'll leave the phone off the hook just to hear the dial tone. Sometimes I feel like a small child who is just easily entertained by stimuli. Saying that, and it is pretty obvious, I enjoy hearing "unmusical" (as in sounds that aren't found in a musical context typically) integrated into my music.


You're musical tastes and my musical tastes are nearly identical!  The planets must have been in the same positions in their orbit on both of our birthdays :lol:


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## Cnote11

Perhaps we share the very day  That would be highly unlikely.


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## LudwigNAV

I'm attracted to music with tight, lovely melodies, and skillful, thought-provoking, heart-warming exposition. I like music that moves me and makes me think. If I feel no emotions towards a piece of music, then it is meaningless to me; if I can cry during it or am moved to wonder, than it is a successful piece to me. Tears are my greatest judge of truly wonderful music.

I enjoy music that is honest, above all else really. If a composer wrote a piece of music with honest intentions in order to express himself or the society or environment around him, than I consider it to be honest and worthy. If however, a composer wrote a piece simply to espouse a notion of being different without any emotional content, then I consider it not only dishonest to me as a listener but also dishonest to the composer himself.

To me, art (which of course includes music) is an expression of feelings and the social era in which it was conceived. It must reflect the artist and society. If the artist is honest and expresses love, imagination, thought, fear, hope, trust, compassion, happiness, sadness, and so much more, then the music is all the better for it. If, on the other hand, an artist creates something simply for the sake of doing it, then it is nothing but a misfortune to us all.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

LudwigNAV said:


> I'm attracted to music with tight, lovely melodies, and skillful, thought-provoking, heart-warming exposition. I like music that moves me and makes me think. If I feel no emotions towards a piece of music, then it is meaningless to me; if I can cry during it or am moved to wonder, than it is a successful piece to me. Tears are my greatest judge of truly wonderful music.
> 
> I enjoy music that is honest, above all else really. If a composer wrote a piece of music with honest intentions in order to express himself or the society or environment around him, than I consider it to be honest and worthy. If however, a composer wrote a piece simply to espouse a notion of being different without any emotional content, then I consider it not only dishonest to me as a listener but also dishonest to the composer himself.
> 
> To me, art (which of course includes music) is an expression of feelings and the social era in which it was conceived. It must reflect the artist and society. If the artist is honest and expresses love, imagination, thought, fear, hope, trust, compassion, happiness, sadness, and so much more, then the music is all the better for it. If, on the other hand, an artist creates something simply for the sake of doing it, then it is nothing but a misfortune to us all.


This beautifully honest piece by Xenakis is sure to put a tear in your eye.


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## Stargazer

For me the most important aspect of music is that it evokes some kind of emotion. As for the musical elements I'm usually most attracted to, I really like an interesting melody the most...that can make or break a piece for me! Also I notice that most of my favorite pieces have a really obvious, recurring theme in them.


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## Guest

Wait a tick! I thought that for humans, just about everything evokes some kind of emotion. A storm, the autumn leaves, sunsets, a baby crying on the trans-atlantic flight, breakfast cereals, orangutans.... Everything evokes emotion. That's just who we are. It's an aspect of anything, because we are who we are.

Listening to music is no different from kissing your sweetie or watching a basketball game, in that respect.


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## LudwigNAV

> This beautifully honest piece by Xenakis is sure to put a tear in your eye.


Yikes! Tears of pain, perhaps!



> Wait a tick! I thought that for humans, just about everything evokes some kind of emotion. A storm, the autumn leaves, sunsets, a baby crying on the trans-atlantic flight, breakfast cereals, orangutans.... Everything evokes emotion. That's just who we are. It's an aspect of anything, because we are who we are.
> 
> Listening to music is no different from kissing your sweetie or watching a basketball game, in that respect.


I never made a claim to the contrary.

For example, Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony calls to my mind (and I'm sure to others as well) the sounds of waking up to the songs of birds so vividly that I am moved completely by it. Likewise, whenever I hear the birds singing outside without any music playing, I can instantly hear the beginning notes of the Pastoral play in my head. Of course I can cry to that because it is so beautiful. The link to real life has been established, the piece is an honest representation of nature, it has meaning, it has made me think and feel, it has done all the things that I look for in a piece of music and therefore I enjoy it to the utmost.

To prove the same point using a point of yours, there are many bitter sweet moments to me (Schumann's Kinderszenen is what I immediately think of) where I can recall my first kiss as a child. It fills me with pleasant memories of a happy time in my life; consequently it has achieved all the qualities that I have hitherto mentioned in my previous post and in this one about the Pastoral. So, I enjoy it all the same.


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## bigshot

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> This beautifully honest piece by Xenakis is sure to put a tear in your eye.


If you truly do like this kind of music, you should realize that using it as a practical joke on people who clearly wouldn't appreciate it isn't doing the music any favors. It only polarizes people more and makes those who might otherwise have an open mind dismiss all of it as only good for punishing people in discussion forums.

When I have music that I'd like to share with others, I try to put it into a favorable context and explain its positive attributes.

Of course if this really is complete noise which is only useful to shock and punish, you're doing it perfectly.


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## Guest

Ludwig, I was responding to a remark of _Stargazers,_ not to you. (I.e., I never claimed that you claimed that....)

bigshot, last time I shared music I like by putting it into a favorable context and explaining its positive attributes, the response I got was "yeah, right." The polarization happened long before anyone posted any videos and long before there were any chat groups and long before there was any interwebs. And the polarization is self-perpetuating.

I'm not going to decide which videos to post based on my guess as to whether this or that poster is able to understand and appreciate what I've posted. If this is truly a place where we can share what we like, then there won't be any of this flummery about "punishment." Nobody's forcing any of you to watch those clips. Only if you were forced would the word "punishment" make any sense.

In any case, all of those "punishment" pieces that have been posted recently have been of things I happen to enjoy, thoroughly. So because Ludwig (or whomever) doesn't like them, we're not supposed to share them with each other? Because Ludwig's sense of beauty is so fragile and needs to be protected, Composer's sense of beauty has to be censored?

Nope.


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## Cnote11

Some people can't take any light-heartedness. I don't think its really ComposerOfAvantGarde's fault for other people's irrationality. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that it is merely one piece and it isn't representative of all. If one "practical joke" by one poster deters some "open-minded" person into dismissing it all based on his one encounter then I truly am afraid of the capabilities, or rather the incapabilities, of the human species.


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## bigshot

It seems that all of these YouTube videos are practical jokes. I've been dutifully clicking on each and every one, and the only one that had any sort of musicality to it was a pleasant piece by Avo Part. That was a few weeks ago in one of the numerous "contemporary music is just as good as Beethoven" threads. It's gotten to the point in this forum when I cringe every time I click on that sideways triangle. With all the great music to be shared, it's a shame that the opportunity is wasted on one practical joke after another.


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## science

The temperature is hot in here. To me it seemed like CoAG was half-jokingly proselytizing, and bigshot was giving advice on proselytization, not trying to censor CoAG. So no one had done anything "wrong." 

This doesn't have to be another "someguy et. al. v. harpsichord concerto et. al." thread.


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## LudwigNAV

> Ludwig, I was responding to a remark of Stargazers, not to you.


My apologies, some times with these message boards it is easy to miss or ignore a post by accident.



> In any case, all of those "punishment" pieces that have been posted recently have been of things I happen to enjoy, thoroughly. So because Ludwig (or whomever) doesn't like them, we're not supposed to share them with each other? Because Ludwig's sense of beauty is so fragile and needs to be protected, Composer's sense of beauty has to be censored?


Now that's just insulting. I have no need for my feelings or my senses to be protected. Good art should challenge us and break barriers. One piece of static noise doesn't do that: it is one dimensional, hostile, and unappealing. But, for example, let's take the Appassionata Sonata. In it we have many dimensions: the tension and suffering of the first movement, the simple beauty of the second, and the power and aggression of the last, all combined into a piece of stunning diversity and expression.

What I see that we lose in contemporary compositions is the conflict and diversity of pieces past. I may not thoroughly enjoy everything that, say, Shostakovich wrote, from a musical standpoint. But he expressed an array of emotions in a world-changing, life-changing, tumultuous time. Whereas, to me, atonal, twelve-tone, etc. composers show me no discernible difference from one work to the next. Show me a range of a vast amount of different emotions, not just the ugly ones.


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## Cnote11

science said:


> The temperature is hot in here. To me it seemed like CoAG was half-jokingly proselytizing, and bigshot was giving advice on proselytization, not trying to censor CoAG. So no one had done anything "wrong."
> 
> This doesn't have to be another "someguy et. al. v. harpsichord concerto et. al." thread.


I happen to think it does.


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## Guest

bigshot said:


> It seems that all of these YouTube videos are practical jokes.


They're not. 


bigshot said:


> I've been dutifully clicking on each and every one, and the only one that had any sort of musicality to it was a pleasant piece by Avo Part.


The only one that had what you consider to be musicality. But you're not the only one in the room. I also have clicked on each and every one, not dutifully but with pleasure. I do not enjoy Pärt's music, but I don't need to tell anyone that I think his music is crap. 


bigshot said:


> That was a few weeks ago in one of the numerous "contemporary music is just as good as Beethoven" threads.


Misidentifications like this are tiresome.


bigshot said:


> It's gotten to the point in this forum when I cringe every time I click on that sideways triangle. With all the great music to be shared, it's a shame that the opportunity is wasted on one practical joke after another.


Dude. You're just not getting the point. We ARE sharing great music. It's wasted on you, but so what? You are not the only one in the room.


----------



## Guest

LudwigNAV said:


> [T]o me, atonal, twelve-tone, etc. composers show me no discernible difference from one work to the next. Show me a range of a vast amount of different emotions, not just the ugly ones.


Um, there's plenty of difference from one work to the next.

I could show you a vast range, but would you perceive it? You've already said you perceive no discernible difference from one work to the next. All I can say in response is that I do perceive enormous differences from one work to the next, I do perceive a range of emotions, ugly ones as well as all the others.

Whatever is blocking you from perceiving that is not something I can remove, certainly not with more Youtube videos, which will seem to you to be undifferentiated ugliness apparently.

All I can think to do is point to others' experiences that are different from yours and ask you to take them seriously.

Hey, it could happen!


----------



## Guest

Cnote11 said:


> I happen to think it does.


Zing!

....


----------



## mmsbls

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> This beautifully honest piece by Xenakis is sure to put a tear in your eye.


It's my understanding that S.709 was produced by the computer program GENDY which uses stochastic (random number generators) processes to generate the music. Could you give me a sense of what you mean by the piece being "honest"?


----------



## mmsbls

As best I can tell the elements most attractive to me are:

Tension and resolution (with resolution being extremely important). In general the tension can't be too long, but I do love Wagner and I'm told he creates constant tension as he creates resolution. 
By today's standards - more consonance than dissonance.
Harmony/counterpoint.
Melody.


----------



## violadude

some guy said:


> Um, there's plenty of difference from one work to the next.
> 
> I could show you a vast range, but would you perceive it? You've already said you perceive no discernible difference from one work to the next. All I can say in response is that I do perceive enormous differences from one work to the next, I do perceive a range of emotions, ugly ones as well as all the others.
> 
> Whatever is blocking you from perceiving that is not something I can remove, certainly not with more Youtube videos, which will seem to you to be undifferentiated ugliness apparently.
> 
> All I can think to do is point to others' experiences that are different from yours and ask you to take them seriously.
> 
> Hey, it could happen!


Yes I think anyone who spends a significant amount of time listening to a certain type of music starts being able to tell the subtle differences from style to style within that genre. If you haven't spent a significant amount of time listening to atonal music (or baroque or classical or romantic or impressionism for that matter) I don't see how you can say there is no difference from piece to piece. That's a judgement based on ignorance.


----------



## Guest

mmsbls said:


> It's my understanding that S.709 was produced by the computer program GENDY which uses stochastic (random number generators) processes to generate the music. Could you give me a sense of what you mean by the piece being "honest"?


Number one, Composer's proffering of S.709 was tongue-in-cheek. (Note the smiley.)

Number two, even so, that's a beautiful piece.

Number three, no one can give you a sense of what they mean by a piece being "honest" because that's not a real category. (Which is something that Composer's t-i-ch post was suggesting.)

Number four, nothing. There is NOOOOOO fourth thing.

Number five, the process for producing music is less important than the result of those sound waves hitting someone's ears, though for composers the process often seems to be the only important thing. Be wary how far you take what composers say about their own processes.


----------



## Cnote11

violadude said:


> Yes I think anyone who spends a significant amount of time listening to a certain type of music starts being able to tell the subtle differences from style to style within that genre. If you haven't spent a significant amount of time listening to atonal music (or baroque or classical or romantic or impressionism for that matter) I don't see how you can say there is no difference from piece to piece. That's a judgement based on ignorance.


This forum doesn't have a bowing icon so... :tiphat::cheers::clap::trp: will have to do.


----------



## Stargazer

some guy said:


> Wait a tick! I thought that for humans, just about everything evokes some kind of emotion. A storm, the autumn leaves, sunsets, a baby crying on the trans-atlantic flight, breakfast cereals, orangutans.... Everything evokes emotion. That's just who we are. It's an aspect of anything, because we are who we are.
> 
> Listening to music is no different from kissing your sweetie or watching a basketball game, in that respect.


I guess I should have clarified, by saying an emotion I'd like to experience. Obviously not many people want to subject themselves to the emotions they get when a baby is crying in the seat behind them on a 12hr flight. And consequently, most people would rather listen to music that makes them feel better as opposed to music that annoys or bores them lol.


----------



## Couchie

A piece should be the beginning and the end of the world. Anything less is a bit of a disappointment I'm afraid.


----------



## LudwigNAV

I am perfectly willing to continue trying my hand at 20th century / atonal / etc. music. All I ask for is a discussion on it in an attempt to understand what is going on, because I know for myself that I have tried for many years to study and understand it but to no avail. Yet, I'm extremely stubborn and I keep coming back to these types of compositions because I feel as if I'm missing something somewhere.

The point I was making was that to my ears all I hear is dissonance followed by dissonance followed by dissonance, which gets exhausting and remains short-sighted, whereas with traditional pieces, I can hear consonance and dissonance contrasted into a work with a wide range of expression.

Perhaps I just don't have the ear for it; as I said, I'm stubborn and willing to analyze the pieces as I do works that I love. I feel as if there is a gap in my artistic understanding of the 20th century composers when seen against the backdrop of the massive social change that was happening during the first few decades. I have yet to find someone who could or did thoroughly analyze the artistic expression during this time period. I would think now is as good a time as ever to do so.


----------



## violadude

LudwigNAV said:


> I am perfectly willing to continue trying my hand at 20th century / atonal / etc. music. All I ask for is a discussion on it in an attempt to understand what is going on, because I know for myself that I have tried for many years to study and understand it but to no avail. Yet, I'm extremely stubborn and I keep coming back to these types of compositions because I feel as if I'm missing something somewhere.
> 
> The point I was making was that to my ears all I hear is dissonance followed by dissonance followed by dissonance, which gets exhausting and remains short-sighted, whereas with traditional pieces, I can hear consonance and dissonance contrasted into a work with a wide range of expression.
> 
> Perhaps I just don't have the ear for it; as I said, I'm stubborn and willing to analyze the pieces as I do works that I love. I feel as if there is a gap in my artistic understanding of the 20th century composers when seen against the backdrop of the massive social change that was happening during the first few decades. I have yet to find someone who could or did thoroughly analyze the artistic expression during this time period. I would think now is as good a time as ever to do so.


If you could post a 20th century piece that you have had particular difficulty with I would be glad to try and help you enjoy it.


----------



## Cnote11

It is quite possible that you just don't like dissonance. Not all 20th Century Classical is dissonant though. I don't know why people act like it is synonymous (in general, not directed at anybody in this thread).


----------



## neoshredder

Couchie said:


> A piece should be the beginning and the end of the world. Anything less is a bit of a disappointment I'm afraid.


And that piece would come from Wagner.


----------



## neoshredder

LudwigNAV said:


> I am perfectly willing to continue trying my hand at 20th century / atonal / etc. music. All I ask for is a discussion on it in an attempt to understand what is going on, because I know for myself that I have tried for many years to study and understand it but to no avail. Yet, I'm extremely stubborn and I keep coming back to these types of compositions because I feel as if I'm missing something somewhere.
> 
> The point I was making was that to my ears all I hear is dissonance followed by dissonance followed by dissonance, which gets exhausting and remains short-sighted, whereas with traditional pieces, I can hear consonance and dissonance contrasted into a work with a wide range of expression.
> 
> Perhaps I just don't have the ear for it; as I said, I'm stubborn and willing to analyze the pieces as I do works that I love. I feel as if there is a gap in my artistic understanding of the 20th century composers when seen against the backdrop of the massive social change that was happening during the first few decades. I have yet to find someone who could or did thoroughly analyze the artistic expression during this time period. I would think now is as good a time as ever to do so.


The early part of the 20th century was great. I assume you are talking about mainly the atonal part of the 20th century came in. Yeah that might not be your thing as it isn't for many. But Ravel, Debussy, Bartok, and Stravinsky should not be put into that same category of unlistenable dissonance.


----------



## Guest

neoshredder said:


> Ravel, Debussy, Bartok, and Stravinsky should not be put into that same category of unlistenable dissonance.


The contents are constantly being replaced; only the category remains the same.

Beethoven used to be in it. Berlioz. Chopin. Schumann. Bizet (Carmen? Unlistenable!). Liszt. Wagner. Brahms. Tchaikovsky. Scriabin. Debussy. Ives. Bartok. Schoenberg. Stravinsky. Ravel. Varese.

And so forth. All very different from each other. But all having at some point been in the category of unlistenable dissonance.

Starting to have second thoughts about that there category, quite frankly.:lol:


----------



## neoshredder

There was some dissonance. I'm not saying dissonance is unlistenable. I'm saying that every piece is all about dissonance and no consonance, that is very tough for people to get into. Thus why early modern tends to be thought of higher compared to late modern. Of course there are exceptions to that as there is plenty of tonal modern music as well.


----------



## bigshot

some guy said:


> They're not.


I would like to buy you a paragraph for Christmas. When you chop up your relplies like that, every line looks just like the one above.


----------



## bigshot

Cnote11 said:


> It is quite possible that you just don't like dissonance.


All art is about contrasts. There's no perceiving the differences in dissonance unless it's contrasted against tonalism. All dissonance just ends up blending into noise. Dissonance in Shostakovich and early Schoenberg is great.


----------



## LudwigNAV

Let's start with Bartok's 4th String Quartet and Shostakovich's 8th Quartet. I'm inclined to favor the latter here as I can perceive the differences in melody, theme, and the consonance compared to the dissonance better than the Bartok's. Unfortunately, it still seems too dissonant to me overall and I tend to believe this could be attributed to a defect in how I listen.

Bartok's piece strikes me as mostly the same, unchanging throughout. The only difference I can hear are the changes from loud dissonance to quiet dissonance; there's no contrast between sections other than that. I'm asking politely, what am I listening for, or rather to? Once again I feel that this is expressing a lot of the tension during the time of its composition yet I feel I have a deficiency in how I should, or am, reacting to it.



> The early part of the 20th century was great. I assume you are talking about mainly the atonal part of the 20th century came in.


Precisely.



> There was some dissonance. I'm not saying dissonance is unlistenable. I'm saying that every piece is all about dissonance and no consonance, that is very tough for people to get into. Thus why early modern tends to be thought of higher compared to late modern. Of course there are exceptions to that as there is plenty of tonal modern music as well.


That's my feeling overall. I was also very excited when I first heard Ralph Vaughan Williams. I thought to myself, an honest composer who made music in the 20th century without having to be a reactionary to melody! Granted, there are a few works by him that 'noodle' on a bit for my liking but overall he stuck with a tonal scheme that explored themes quite well.


----------



## Cnote11

neoshredder said:


> There was some dissonance. I'm not saying dissonance is unlistenable. I'm saying that every piece is all about dissonance and no consonance, that is very tough for people to get into. Thus why early modern tends to be thought of higher compared to late modern. Of course there are exceptions to that as there is plenty of tonal modern music as well.


I think some guy's point is that dissonance is not a static term and is relatively defined in the way we typically use it.


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## science

bigshot said:


> All art is about contrasts.


I wonder if this is true, or if it is a product of a certain way of looking at art.


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## brianwalker

*Wonder. *

Whether it's the wonder-ful strings of the entry of the gods into Valhalla.

Or the shocking sublimity of the Grosse Fugue.

Or the unbelievable joy and wonderful tenderness of K503.

Especially the mystical wonder, the holiest of holies, the cosmic hints and gestures of the Sixth prelude in the first book of the Well Tempered Clavier and the Transformation music from Act I and III of Wagner's greatest opera.

There is really too much to say.

*Wonder. *


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## bigshot

science said:


> I wonder if this is true, or if it is a product of a certain way of looking at art.


I work with artists for a living, and they're all very different. But this is the one thing they agree on. Painters work warm against cool and light against dark, musicians work loud against soft and different timbres of sound against each other, graphic artists work textures against open space, Actors contrast moods or tone of voice. It's one of the fundamentals of artistic creation.


----------



## Cnote11

bigshot said:


> All art is about contrasts. There's no perceiving the differences in dissonance unless it's contrasted against tonalism. All dissonance just ends up blending into noise. Dissonance in Shostakovich and early Schoenberg is great.


I should have said "the specific usage of dissonance in those pieces''.


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## MrCaioFaco

This is a very controversial question, I think. It is true that a piece that has well-defined elements, a good orchestration and is developed in a creative way will always be "good music", but what makes a person like a music are, actually, the "extra-musical" elements that are present in that composition. 
In this case, a person does not search for certain elements in a composition, indeed, it is his "musical history" that makes these elements are pleasing in his point of view. This, I think, that allows us to enjoy both very distincts pieces like the string quartet by Webern and a Mozart piano concerto.

Ps.: Sorry for the english, I am Brazilian.


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## violadude

science said:


> I wonder if this is true, or if it is a product of a certain way of looking at art.


The latter


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## bigshot

You have to be aware of all the latent possibilities that give a work its special character - its atmosphere, its moods, its contrasts. -Alfred Brendel
------------
I organize the opposition between colors, lines and curves. I set curves against straight lines, patches of color against plastic forms, pure colors against subtly nuanced shades of gray. -Fernand Leger
------------
In the canvas of life, a flat landscape would be pretty boring. It is the valleys and the mountains that help us to appreciate the flatlands. It is the dark that makes us appreciate the light, and the cold that makes us appreciate the warm. -Anne Copeland
------------
Artistic Grammar: Communicative grammar is generally defined by contrast, balance, harmony, and distribution. These are the building blocks of composition, and they help convey context and manipulate relationships among content elements.

Despite the importance of these fundamentals, the language of art and design is no different from any other language in that the rules of its vocabulary and grammar do not fully define it. Moreover, most of the rules of language have exceptions, and some creative modes of communication make little or no reference to rules. Every language is lent nuance, style and character by the way that each individual uses it, and there are exceptions for every grammatical rule.

Yet, no language succeeds without structure. The fundamentals of communication are always relevant and necessary as reference points. Without the essentials, communication-be it verbal, written, graphic, musical, or physical-is impossible. In fact, those creative modes of communication mentioned earlier are only meaningful by how they contrast with widely understood reference points. These widely understood reference points get their meaningful essence the same way that everything else does: through contrast.

http://www.andyrutledge.com/contrast-and-meaning.php
------------


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## Guest

bigshot said:


> All art is about contrasts. There's no perceiving the differences in dissonance unless it's contrasted against tonalism. All dissonance just ends up blending into noise. Dissonance in Shostakovich and early Schoenberg is great.


I was just going to ask neoshredder what s/he meant by "dissonance." But this comment provides a context for that question: "There's no perceiving the differences in dissonance unless it's contrasted against tonalism."

If by "dissonance" you mean "the motivating principle of all tonal music," whereby certain chords and even individual pitches are said to lead into each other (in a C Major scale the B natural is a dissonance), or resolve, then what dissonance is being contrasted against is consonance. Technically speaking, the fundamental principle of tonal music is dissonance. It's the thing that supplies practically all the effects of tonality.

If by "dissonance" you mean "discord," or "sounds that are unpleasant to me," then you've first of all got a moving target, as I suggested in my category with shifting content. As the sounds of Beethoven seem less and less discordant to people, he moves out of the category and Chopin takes his place. And so on.

Second of all, discord is not contrastable with "tonalism." Discord is the opposite of concord. Tonal pieces can contain discordant sounds. Or not. (They cannot fail to contain dissonance. No dissonance, in the technical sense, then no tonality.)

Non-tonal pieces may contain sounds and combinations of sounds that certain people may not find pleasing. But if you're going to claim that a whole category of music contains unrelieved discord, then you're going to have to start naming names. Because no category, except maybe "noise," contains unrelieved discord. And since any piece can have all sorts of contrasts--between different instruments or different sound sources, between textures, between dynamics, between physical placement (not as easy to hear on a simple stereo setup), between high frequences and low, and so forth--it seems not quite right to claim that the absence of one possible pairing (the difference between discord and concord) means that there's no possibility of contrast at all.

(Not that I agree that all art is about contrasts. But given that it is, the above is what I think about this situation.)


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## HarpsichordConcerto

bigshot said:


> I work with artists for a living, and they're all very different. But this is the one thing they agree on. Painters work warm against cool and light against dark, musicians work loud against soft and different timbres of sound against each other, graphic artists work textures against open space, Actors contrast moods or tone of voice. It's one of the fundamentals of artistic creation.


Contrast is one of _the _key ingredients of opera. The characters and the plot, supported by strong music of contrast make a strong opera. Can you imagine an opera with homogeneous characters and likewise one dimensional arias? This was one of the key features of a Handel opera that set his apart from his contemporaries and not equalled until Mozart came along. And of course, instrumental music by these folks with a strong vocal idiom, even amongst the pioneering examples, such as Mozart's final dozen piano concertos, also displayed these contrasts even within single movements.

But contrast can be difficult or even impossible to discern, especially with the cacophonic-random-mumbo-jumbo-crappy variety, where all one hears is pure ludicrous noise. As long as one enjoys it, I suppose anything can be perceived from it, and that's all it matters for them lucky(?) folks ...


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## violadude

The whole point of this thread was actually to NOT get into another "bigshot and crew" vs. violadude and crew argument".....


----------



## Petwhac

My understanding of dissonance is, that which _seems_ to require resolution. I say _seems_, because it is about the context. There is no absolute dissonance or consonance, only relative. This is fairly obvious and has been stated often enough. However, although tonality, which can mean many different things, is not the only language/system/tool/method, of organizing sound into patterns (music), it will always be the most accepted. This is because, in my opinion, it is the most versatile, expressive and universally understood language there is.
Before anyone chimes in with accusations of euro-centric chauvinism, they should ask themselves why, the world over, the western tonal approach is ever growing? No, it has nothing to do with cultural imperialism. In China, I believe they are taking up the piano in their millions.
There's nothing wrong with abandoning tonality altogether, each to their own. But it is a mistake to conclude that just because Beethoven, Stravinsky and many others were once deemed incomprehensible, that somehow the world will 'catch up' with the experiments of the 20C. The public 'came round' to what was once considered too modern in earlier eras because it was a case of differences in degree not kind.


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## mmsbls

Understanding that dissonance is not only relative from person to person but also relative over one person's life, are there people who are attracted to pure dissonance without any resolution? For me the enjoyment of dissonance is the tension that gets released, but are there people who love just that tension? I'm assuming the answer is yes, but I haven't seen that listed in this thread.


----------



## bigshot

violadude said:


> The whole point of this thread was actually to NOT get into another "bigshot and crew" vs. violadude and crew argument".....


Can we get crew jackets?


----------



## bigshot

Petwhac said:


> My understanding of dissonance is, that which _seems_ to require resolution. I say _seems_, because it is about the context.


If that's the case, I was using the wrong term, because that is about structure not contrasts. I was using the term to refer to Philip Glass or the noise videos I keep getting subjected to that have an overall sameness of sound.


----------



## neoshredder

mmsbls said:


> Understanding that dissonance is not only relative from person to person but also relative over one person's life, are there people who are attracted to pure dissonance without any resolution? For me the enjoyment of dissonance is the tension that gets released, but are their people who love just that tension? I'm assuming the answer is yes, but I haven't seen that listed in this thread.


Also I prefer the harpsichord and much of music after the 18th century does not use it. I wish it did. But yeah a mix of pleasant and unpleasant sounds would be better than just consistent unpleasant sounds that is basically noise.


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## Argus

Thought of some more elements:

Synth parts that use the pitch bend wheel frequently.

Big brass section unisons in the bass.

Beat frequencies esp. binaural beats.

Suspended 2nd and 4th chords (quartal harmony).

Gated reverb on drums.

Sul ponticello.

LFOs.

Multiphonics.

Arpeggiators.

Trombones using plunger mutes.

Phasing.

IM7-IVM7

Rhythm sections that understand how to play in the pocket.

If anyone can combine all those into the same piece of music, I'd buy it.


----------



## Argus

bigshot said:


> If that's the case, I was using the wrong term, because that is about structure not contrasts. I was using the term to refer to Philip Glass or the noise videos I keep getting subjected to that have an overall sameness of sound.


No one's subjecting you to anything. This place isn't Guantanamo Bay, you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave.

If you are going to stay why not try some music:






I forget another element for the list: choruses with lyrics that start with the same few words on each line.


----------



## Guest

One thing I notice in all these kinds of discussions is how much baggage is brought to it. I find myself getting hung up on the baggage and unable to converse about the topic until the baggage has been cleared away. (That accounts for a lot of the things that Polednice and Sid James have been annoyed about in some of my past posts. I was trying to clear away the baggage so that I could converse; they saw me simply undercutting the premises of the discussion. They wanted me to just discuss. Well, ME TOO!! But if people start off with what I perceive as false premises, I can hardly talk about the conclusions until the premises have been fixed. And then, of course, those conclusions may change. Such is life.)

A music teacher of mine back in college used to avoid the negative connotations of "dissonance" (in its meaning of "discord") by modifying the word "harmonies" with "tight" or "loose," the tight ones being closer together, the looser ones being farther apart. (Ironically, the tritone is fairly loose: the major third is tighter.) 

Hardly anyone uses dissonance to mean "something that suggests that something else will follow," which is how it works in common practice music. To get back to that B. A B in a C Major scale suggests that something else will follow, a C. Play a B by itself to anyone and no one will say "that's a dissonance." That contextless "dissonance" only arises with intervals or chords. But what no one seriously considers is that "dissonance" is a moving target. What once seemed a tight harmony (fifths, thirds, fourths) now no longer does. Even sevens and ninths and such, and major seconds don't seem all that discordant to most people any more. Minor seconds can still do the trick for many people, but by no means all. People will give that historical fact lip-service in these conversation, but will then often as not post something that clearly indicates that they think dissonance is a thing, and that it describes the sound itself.

Dissonance as it has been used in these discussions has identified a response, a reaction, not ever the thing that's being reacted to, which is mostly talked about in very vague and general terms: dissonant, atonal, avant garde, whatever. It would be a great help to talk about specifics, and not even specific composers, specific pieces. Unfortunately, the broad brush is more popular, especially among people who don't like "modern" music or for whom "modern" music seems to be all the same.

It's not, but try to convince anyone of that!:lol:


----------



## Petwhac

I'm not sure the description of 'tight' and 'loose' harmonies by some guy's teacher makes the issue any clearer.
If the word dissonance has a negative connotation it is only with those who are using the term wrongly. It's hard to have a discussion about these things unless everyone agrees on the meanings of terms.

_Dissonant_ is not equal to _ugly_. Far from it. It is that which gives tonal music it's most powerfully expressive quality.

What is 'modern' music? It is that which has been written recently. Berio? Lady Gaga? Chris Potter? Robert Ashley? Coldplay?Peter Maxwell Davies? Some you like, some you don't.

There is no chord or interval which in isolation and if orchestrated in a certain way cannot be said to be beautiful or at least inoffensive.


----------



## Cnote11

Who is in the violadude crew, I wonder?

Mind you, if we're talking about art needing contrasts, you can certainly contrast noise with more noise. Formally, petwhac is correct in the idea that dissonance is what seems to need resolving. This is what makes it relative. I think petwhac summed that up very nicely. I'm not entirely sure about the second half of his post, although I do agree that one cannot expect that people will "catch up" and for the avant-garde and difficult modern classical pieces of the last 100 years to become familiar in music, although you do see some aspects taken up into popular music from them, and I think that trend will continue.

For the record, mmsbls, I do love "pure dissonance", but as mentioned it is often contrasted with "lesser dissonance", which in a way gives it the same form of "release". I think that falls under that umbrella of my love of timbre and texture. I never consider it uncomfortable or ugly in any context either.


----------



## bigshot

Cnote11 said:


> Mind you, if we're talking about art needing contrasts, you can certainly contrast noise with more noise.


How is more of the same a contrast. Quieter noise or noise that occupies a different frequency perhaps. But I much prefer music to noise. Music has another attribute that is neccesary- an organized structure. Noise is generally random.


----------



## violadude

Cnote11 said:


> Formally, petwhac is correct in the idea that dissonance is what seems to need resolving.


Yes, but only in the context of tonality.


----------



## Cnote11

bigshot said:


> How is more of the same a contrast. Quieter noise or noise that occupies a different frequency perhaps. But I much prefer music to noise. Music has another attribute that is neccesary- an organized structure. Noise is generally random.


On the contrary, "noise music", as generally labeled, is often highly controlled and organized by the composer of the noise piece. It seems to be that you don't know enough about the music you are speaking negatively about, or you have some sort of personal definition for such things then is "accepted generally". For the record, the term "contrasts" implies what you stated. Obviously you can't contrast with more of the same. Things can often become less "noisy" when you introduce a sort of harsher noise into the mix. It is the same principle as loudness, really. Your ears become accustomed to a certain level of volume over an amount of time to where it no longer is consciously evaluated as loud, and the inverse can be said to be true as well, where any volume of level below that of the volume level originally introduced is not perceived as "loud", generally.


----------



## Petwhac

If you tell me how much you'll pay and how long it has to be I'll try and oblige. 


Argus said:


> Thought of some more elements:
> 
> Synth parts that use the pitch bend wheel frequently.
> 
> Big brass section unisons in the bass.
> 
> Beat frequencies esp. binaural beats.
> 
> Suspended 2nd and 4th chords (quartal harmony).
> 
> Gated reverb on drums.
> 
> Sul ponticello.
> 
> LFOs.
> 
> Multiphonics.
> 
> Arpeggiators.
> 
> Trombones using plunger mutes.
> 
> Phasing.
> 
> IM7-IVM7
> 
> Rhythm sections that understand how to play in the pocket.
> 
> If anyone can combine all those into the same piece of music, I'd buy it.


----------



## Cnote11

violadude said:


> Yes, but only in the context of tonality.


Not necessarily so. If you consider a break between Renaissance and tonality then it would still remain true. However, what was considered dissonant then is much different now. Is the term dissonant dependent on the context of tonality? If one does not feel the need to resolve a dissonant chord then can it be said there is dissonance whatsoever? In what way can dissonance be used as a term outside of tonality in a different manner than what it means in tonality?


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## violadude

Cnote11 said:


> Not necessarily so. If you consider a break between Renaissance and tonality then it would still remain true. However, what was considered dissonant then is much different now. Is the term dissonant dependent on the context of tonality? If one does not feel the need to resolve a dissonant chord then can it be said there is dissonance whatsoever? In what way can dissonance be used as a term outside of tonality in a different manner than what it means in tonality?


Well, I include modal music in the broad definition of tonality so I was speaking of the Renaissance as well. The term dissonant is not dependent on the context of tonality but it's definition of needing to resolve is. Basically how I think of it is that there is no such thing as consonant, only levels of dissonant and you can rank intervals from less to more dissonant based on the ratios that they vibrate at.


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## mmsbls

Cnote11 said:


> For the record, mmsbls, I do love "pure dissonance", but as mentioned it is often contrasted with "lesser dissonance", which in a way gives it the same form of "release". I think that falls under that umbrella of my love of timbre and texture. I never consider it uncomfortable or ugly in any context either.


Yes, I think I understand. In another thread aleazk referenced part of Ligeti's _Atmospheres_ where the dissonance (my term) grows higher and higher and then ends with a deep bass section. He mentioned the intense excitement of the rising pitch with the "metaphysical" sound of the bass afterward. Both are unpleasantly dissonant to me, but I can see how someone might love both sections and especially the contrast between the two.

This is a quote from a different thread where violadude talks abut how contemporary music is generally not discussed in the same way earlier music is discussed.



violadude said:


> I think part of the problem is how it atonal/contemporary is often described to people who have never heard of it. Contemporary music and older more tonal music both are written with an intellectual process with an expressive result. The problem is people often hear about the intellectual process of contemporary music first, instead of the expressive result which is different from how tonal music is usually described to them (the other way around).


I know that I rarely hear specifics about an atonal or avant-garde work in the same way I've heard countless descriptions of the beauty and emotion evoked by Baroque, Classical, or Romantic works. On TC I've seen people talk about a modern work and simply say it's beautiful, but aleazk's description is more specific and goes deeper to really give a sense of why he loves it so much. I'm very thankful for his comments.


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## Cnote11

violadude said:


> Well, I include modal music in the broad definition of tonality so I was speaking of the Renaissance as well. The term dissonant is not dependent on the context of tonality but it's definition of needing to resolve is. Basically how I think of it is that there is no such thing as consonant, only levels of dissonant and you can rank intervals from less to more dissonant based on the ratios that they vibrate at.


Most people do bunch modal music into tonality, which I feel absolutely no reason to argue against. I feel if we carried on this conversation it would merely hinge upon how we choose to define it, rather than what it actually is. After all, the term "dissonance" is highly subjective to begin with. Essentially, I feel you and I hear the same thing but choose to define it in different ways, but we aren't actually saying anything different.

Edit: Yes, mmsbls, I remember that post and that is a great example of what I mean. As for the expressive vs. intellectual part, I believe both and I think intellect is an expression in itself, and I don't particularly understand the stigma against that. Sounds are often subjective in nature and should give rise to other types of expression as well, of which I feel modern music is on the same footing as the old in terms of.


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## bigshot

Cnote11 said:


> On the contrary, "noise music", as generally labeled, is often highly controlled and organized by the composer of the noise piece..


All I know about it is what I've been shown by folks in this forum. That is when they're sharing music and not talking endlessly about their own personal definitions of words.


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## bigshot

mmsbls said:


> Yes, I think I understand. In another thread aleazk referenced part of Ligeti's _Atmospheres_ where the dissonance (my term) grows higher and higher and then ends with a deep bass section. He mentioned the intense excitement of the rising pitch with the "metaphysical" sound of the bass afterward.


ah! Now here's an avante garde piece I'm familiar with! I love Atmospheres, and even more Nouvelles Aventures. That's some of the funniest cartoon music I've ever heard. Tons of contrasts. I had an LP with clock pendulums on the cover that I used to play endlessly for my friends. It never failed to get a laugh. I think Ligeti is a person who appreciates humor.

I bought that Sony Ligeti CD series and I was very disappointed in the performances. They were nowhere near as lively and fun as that LP I had.


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## ProudSquire

I suppose I'll take a stab at it. :]

For me emotion, melody, clarity and cohesion is all I require. Perhaps that will change someday, but for now that's what really interests me the most when I listen to a piece of music.


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## peeyaj

Is *honesty* can be considered an element of music?

If it is, I am attracted to pieces who is "emotionally honest", that's why I loathe some of Puccini's " fake" and saccharine emotions.

Melody. I want pieces that can get stuck in my head. I admit I am a sloppy listener, so unless a piece can "get" into my head, I will find it a bore.

In my opinion, btw.


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## bigshot

Honesty is a good one. I hadn't thought of that. That's another thing missing in the modern world... Honest emotion. Movies have artificial "heart" and love songs are built on formulas.


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## Argus

bigshot said:


> Honesty is a good one. I hadn't thought of that. That's another thing missing in the modern world... Honest emotion. Movies have artificial "heart" and love songs are built on formulas.












The idea of the listener being able to detect 'honesty' in a piece of music is absolute nonsense. Only the songwriter knows how 'honest' he is being in his lyrics. As for instrumental music being 'honest', what the hell are you talking about?

Can someone please explain how a piece of music can be 'honest'?


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## LudwigNAV

Refer to my post a few pages back, I talked exactly about honesty in music.

The basic notion I had is what bigshot just claimed: that the piece have honest emotion involved in it and not simply formulaic or artificial nonsense. In essence, compose a piece that reflects your genuine emotions, your state of mind, your environment, don't just make a composition to be 'different' or 'cool' which is what I see from all types of modern music.


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## bigshot

I can give you an example in my business... filmmaking. Too often, emotional arcs in stories are made of archetypes, not actual specific emotions. It's a short cut to depicting an emotion. For instance a mom loves a kid because she's a mom. A villain is always evil because he's a villain. Boys and girls fall in love because they're the juvenile leads of the picture.

Real honest emotion is more layered, with motivations and attitudes that are specific to that particular character. These are sometimes called "slash characters" because they're more than one thing at a time... Dad/Archaeologist/Brave/Short Tempered... These layers of emotions and point of view are more "honest" than the symbolic archetype.

The example of Puccini is a good one for this concept. His operas tend to set up archetypal characters in one note emotional situations. When they're sad, everything is sad- the music, the acting, everything- and it's all one kind of sad. No layers of meaning, just one archetypal emotion rammed home on every level.

In general, with this kind of thing, it's up to the actors to lend nuance and layers of meaning to the work through a specific characterization in their acting. Maria Callas could do this vividly. Other performers just sing the notes and follow the lead of the archetypes and create a characterization that is flat and lacks honesty.

Other examples of emotional honesty in pure music would be Mahler symphonies, Wagner's overture to Tristan und Isolde, Beethoven's 9th, etc.

Does that make it clearer to you?

Side note to Argus: There is an awful lot in this world to know. Too much for any one person to contain. Other people are always going to know things you don't. If you dismiss other people's information out of hand and act like you know everything there is to know, you'll never know any more than you do now. There are a lot of years in a lifetime, but you don't want to waste them staying in one place. It's better to make an effort to understand than it is to brush off. Arguments are not excuses to be argumentative. They're an opportunity to learn from other people.


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## Argus

LudwigNAV said:


> Refer to my post a few pages back, I talked exactly about honesty in music.
> 
> The basic notion I had is what bigshot just claimed: that the piece have honest emotion involved in it and not simply formulaic or artificial nonsense. In essence, compose a piece that reflects your genuine emotions, your state of mind, your environment, don't just make a composition to be 'different' or 'cool' which is what I see from all types of modern music.


How do you, the listener, know the piece has 'honest' emotion involved in it? Who decides whether the art is honest or not?



bigshot said:


> Does that make it clearer to you?


No. You've just given your _opinion_ on the matter again. Your opinions are not facts.

I want to know how you decide whether the work is honest?

Why is that one-dimensional villain less 'honest' than a complex multi-faceted character? How is that related to honesty in any way?

Surely, every piece of fiction is dishonest by nature, hence the name 'fiction'.


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## Vesteralen

I wonder if archetypes are really "dishonest"? Shallow, maybe. But, not necessarily dishonest. (Sorry, Argus. Didn't see your post before I sent mine. You said it better.)

However, though it might seem kind of presumptuous to claim that a given type of muisc IS honest. I think I can think of a good example of DISHONEST music.

Think of TV shows and B-movies from the 1960s. The lead character walks into a bar/nightclub and a four-piece band of teenagers are playing something that sounds only vaguely like The Beatles/The Beach Boys/The Animals while all the guys and chicks are frugging their hearts out.


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## bigshot

Argus said:


> Why is that one-dimensional villain less 'honest' than a complex multi-faceted character? How is that related to honesty in any way?


People in the real world are never all good or all bad. They are always made up of layers of contrasting emotions, situations and motivations. Characters that more truly reflect real people are more honest than ones that are just used as symbols to advance the plot.

Emotion in context is always more honest than emotion for emotion's sake. Are you familiar with Puccini's operas? I think he is a very good example of this. A lot of characters in operas are symbolic, but Puccini is one of the most symbolic. Contrast Pinkerton and Cio Cio San in Madame Butterfly to Gotterdammerung where the characters all have their own unique motivations, and the relationships between the characters are always in a state of flux.


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## Argus

bigshot said:


> Side note to Argus: There is an awful lot in this world to know. Too much for any one person to contain. Other people are always going to know things you don't. If you dismiss other people's information out of hand and act like you know everything there is to know, you'll never know any more than you do now. There are a lot of years in a lifetime, but you don't want to waste them staying in one place. It's better to make an effort to understand than it is to brush off. Arguments are not excuses to be argumentative. They're an opportunity to learn from other people.


I only engage in arguments when I either know I'm right, or there is no right or wrong but a conflux of opinions.

No doubt you know things I don't, and I know things you don't, but that doesn't change the problem that you have where you confuse facts with your opinions.


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## LudwigNAV

Because, in a novel, or a film, saying someone is evil because he is evil is not good story telling. That is a cop-out in terms of writing and simply shows that the author lacks any skill at his craft whatsoever. In real, honest life, people are not good, nor are they evil. Everyone is made up of multi-facitious feelings and traits that combine into a shade of gray. You are who you are because of the things you have experienced in your life and the environment around you. These are the actual things that form your character. You are not an evil person simply because you are evil, no one is. Everyone is a product of their environment. I repeat myself for effect.

If a writer cannot explain the reasons why a character is the way he is or why he acts in that way, then he is a poor writer; you must be able to explain the things you like and why you like them or you cannot be said to have any emotions or feelings that make you human. Attributing things to 'evil' or 'good' forces the reader to just believe what is being said rather than thinking it through. Belief isn't good enough to make statements, story, or characters that are true to life, nor is it a way to describe the environment we live in. But following this train of thought will lead us into nothing more than a religious argument which I will completely avoid.

But, this is the point with honest music. I prefer to be challenged throughout a piece that changes and expresses all those multi-facitious things that make us human, which is why I feel modern pieces are so one dimensional. Show me skill in composing as in writing, create musical and lyrical exposition that compels me to feel.

Forgive me for regressing again, but I look at it from the point of a novel. In much the same way that words are arranged into sentences that express things and allow the reader to understand even the very thing they are reading this moment, music does the same thing. By following the 'grammar' of music, it allows it to reach out to the audience in mutual understanding. When you can connect with your audience and make them feel the things you feel or make them reflect on their own lives, then you have achieved true art. As such, I see contemporary compositions as being a jumble of words that make no coherent sense at all. Imagine a novel where the sentences are this: try the field cat ball run wood black start because what shade leaf bug. Utter nonsense, this is what I feel when I hear our modern music.

For a final point, Beethoven came up with a brilliantly simplistic tune for the 'Ode to Joy' that would be irresistible for the mind to not latch onto and never forget. He knew it would reach out to hundreds of thousands of people and set their souls ablaze. More modern compositions do the exact opposite, they seem to strive for nothing more than abhorrence and to push their audience away. In this way they are hopeless and will never reach people.


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## bigshot

Argus said:


> I only engage in arguments when I either know I'm right, or there is no right or wrong but a conflux of opinions.


I wish I was always right every time I opened my mouth! Thankfully, I don't have to be if I surround myself with people who know more than I do.


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## Argus

bigshot said:


> People in the real world are never all good or all bad. They are always made up of layers of contrasting emotions, situations and motivations. Characters that more truly reflect real people are more honest than ones that are just used as symbols to advance the plot.
> 
> Emotion in context is always more honest than emotion for emotion's sake. Are you familiar with Puccini's operas? I think he is a very good example of this. A lot of characters in operas are symbolic, but Puccini is one of the most symbolic. Contrast Pinkerton and Cio Cio San in Madame Butterfly to Gotterdammerung where the characters all have their own unique motivations, and the relationships between the characters are always in a state of flux.


So you are saying a film is more 'honest' when its content is more true to real life?

If that is the case what about fantastical works that don't resemble reality in any way. How can they be termed 'honest' at all?

How does your definition of artistic 'honesty' relate to innately abstact art like music or abstract paintings? How do you determine whether a Kandinsky or a Mondrian painting is 'honest'? The whole point of them is to _not_ reflect the visuals of nature.

But more relevant to this forum, how do you determine whether music is 'honest'? This is the key question here. You have used Gotterdammerung and Madame Butterfly as examples, but *why* do believe the former to be more 'honest'? (Do not say because the characters and libretto are more complex/believable because that is entirely subjective, I want objective reasons).


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## bigshot

LudwigNAV said:


> For a final point, Beethoven came up with a brilliantly simplistic tune for the 'Ode to Joy' that would be irresistible for the mind to not latch onto and never forget. He knew it would reach out to hundreds of thousands of people and set their souls ablaze. More modern compositions do the exact opposite, they seem to strive for nothing more than abhorrence and to push their audience away. In this way they are hopeless and will never reach people.


Music that requires constant intellectual translation can be distancing. The most abstract forms of modern jazz can get like this. There is order to it, but it's so complex and non-intuitive, it never brings the listener into a direct relationship. The best music uses simple means to express complex ideas. The other way around isn't nearly as good.


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## Argus

bigshot said:


> I wish I was always right every time I opened my mouth! Thankfully, I don't have to be if I surround myself with people who know more than I do.


You're like an alchemist, except instead of transforming lead to gold, you turn opinions into facts. How can you possibly lose debates?


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## Argus

bigshot said:


> Music that requires constant intellectual translation can be distancing. The most abstract forms of modern jazz can get like this. There is order to it, but it's so complex and non-intuitive, it never brings the listener into a direct relationship. The best music uses simple means to express complex ideas. The other way around isn't nearly as good.


In your opinion.


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## Vesteralen

So, if I get this right.....If it's too simple (Madame Butterfly), it isn't honest, and if it's too complex (abstract forms of modern jazz), it isn't honest. Conversely, if it's simple (Ode to Joy), it's honest, and if it's complex (Wagner's "Ring") it's honest.


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## bigshot

Argus said:


> So you are saying a film is more 'honest' when its content is more true to real life?
> 
> How does your definition of artistic 'honesty' relate to innately abstact art like music or abstract paintings? How do you determine whether a Kandinsky or a Mondrian painting is 'honest'? The whole point of them is to _not_ reflect the visuals of nature.
> 
> But more relevant to this forum, how do you determine whether music is 'honest'? This is the key question here. You have used Gotterdammerung and Madame Butterfly as examples, but *why* do believe the former to be more 'honest'? (Do not say because the characters and libretto are more complex/believable because that is entirely subjective, I want objective reasons).


I'll take a crack at those three questions.

First question- Not content, but *emotional* content. Characters that the audience can identify with and put themselves into are more honest than characters we see merely as pawns to advance the plot. In Tristan, the sense of longing and hopelessness is something that the listener can latch onto and identify with themselves. The audience experiences the emotions along with the characters. That is honest. At the end of Rigoletto when the hunchback is dragging around the body of his daughter in a sack thinking it's someone else, we know he is going to be sad when he finds out, but the situation and characters are so removed from our own experience, we experience the emotion externally. (Unless the performer is able to inject the specificity into his performance, like I said with the example of Callas above.)

Second question- Yes, honesty in abstract art is possible too. I'll make the examples as extreme as possible, so you see what I'm talking about... Take the flat, geometric paintings of Ellsworth Kelly. They are abstract in a theoretical way. Their impact is entirely perceptual... Based on scale, shape and color. They don't evoke any honest emotion, in fact they distance themselves from the viewer through complete absence of human emotion.

Compare that to Miro's playful shapes or Jackson Pollack's energetic drip paintings. Those are just as abstract as Kelly, but they exhibit a human warmth and honesty that engages the viewer on a bunch of different emotional levels, rather than distancing the viewer with images that are purely perceptual. It all has to do with the honesty of how the emotion is put across... Symbolic vs honest and nuanced.

Third- In purely musical terms, Wagner and Puccini are on opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to emotional honesty. Pinkerton heartlessly dumps Cio Cio San and abandons her. The music expresses extreme sadness with unison strings and one big idea being expressed as a symbolic battering ram. Wagner on the other hand, attempts to convey the complexity of the emotions his characters are feeling in "slash emotions". In the immolation, Brunnhilde says Siegfried is the most faithful of men and the jost unfaithful too. The music expresses her betrayal at the same time it expresses Siegfried's nobility. She is both sad and relieved that it is all over. Wagner's use of the leitmotif is a drop dead genius method of expressing slash emotions. One leitmotif is worked into another to create a third meaning, a melding of the two. Even though Siegfried's betrayal involves magic helmets and love potions, it's still expressed more honestly than Pinkerton just getting on his ship and sailing away... Because the emotions are multifaceted and they're specific to that particular character in that particular situation. It's pretty good to get all of those levels across in purely musical terms, but Wagner's leitmotifs, counterpoint and unique harmonics do it much more honestly than Puccini's unison strings ramming home the symbolic theme do.

Does that clarify it? I'm trying hard to communicate with you.


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## Argus

LudwigNAV said:


> Because, in a novel, or a film, saying someone is evil because he is evil is not good story telling. That is a cop-out in terms of writing and simply shows that the author lacks any skill at his craft whatsoever. In real, honest life, people are not good, nor are they evil. Everyone is made up of multi-facitious feelings and traits that combine into a shade of gray. You are who you are because of the things you have experienced in your life and the environment around you. These are the actual things that form your character. You are not an evil person simply because you are evil, no one is. Everyone is a product of their environment. I repeat myself for effect.
> 
> If a writer cannot explain the reasons why a character is the way he is or why he acts in that way, then he is a poor writer; you must be able to explain the things you like and why you like them or you cannot be said to have any emotions or feelings that make you human. Attributing things to 'evil' or 'good' forces the reader to just believe what is being said rather than thinking it through. Belief isn't good enough to make statements, story, or characters that are true to life, nor is it a way to describe the environment we live in. But following this train of thought will lead us into nothing more than a religious argument which I will completely avoid.
> 
> But, this is the point with honest music. I prefer to be challenged throughout a piece that changes and expresses all those multi-facitious things that make us human, which is why I feel modern pieces are so one dimensional. Show me skill in composing as in writing, create musical and lyrical exposition that compels me to feel.
> 
> Forgive me for regressing again, but I look at it from the point of a novel. In much the same way that words are arranged into sentences that express things and allow the reader to understand even the very thing they are reading this moment, music does the same thing. By following the 'grammar' of music, it allows it to reach out to the audience in mutual understanding. When you can connect with your audience and make them feel the things you feel or make them reflect on their own lives, then you have achieved true art. As such, I see contemporary compositions as being a jumble of words that make no coherent sense at all. Imagine a novel where the sentences are this: try the field cat ball run wood black start because what shade leaf bug. Utter nonsense, this is what I feel when I hear our modern music.
> 
> For a final point, Beethoven came up with a brilliantly simplistic tune for the 'Ode to Joy' that would be irresistible for the mind to not latch onto and never forget. He knew it would reach out to hundreds of thousands of people and set their souls ablaze. More modern compositions do the exact opposite, they seem to strive for nothing more than abhorrence and to push their audience away. In this way they are hopeless and will never reach people.


Surely any novel that features content that isn't true is less honest than novels that are mostly based on reality. The only 'honest' literature aren't novels at all but historic non-fiction. So by nature all novels are on some level dishonest, with the more fantastical being the more dishonest.

Now how do you use those standards to measure musics honesty? Music that most resembles naturally found sounds is most honest? That just wouldn't make sense, especially when the music you mentioned (Beethoven's 9th) doesn't resemble nature.

I'll try another tact:

1. What does the term 'honesty' mean when referring to music?

2. How can we objectively measure the honesty of a piece of music? (For example, the use of a plunger muted trombone solo, or a IM7-IVM7 progression, in a piece of music is a measurable fact, but where is the honesty to measure?)


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## bigshot

Vesteralen said:


> So, if I get this right.....If it's too simple (Madame Butterfly), it isn't honest, and if it's too complex (abstract forms of modern jazz), it isn't honest. Conversely, if it's simple (Ode to Joy), it's honest, and if it's complex (Wagner's "Ring") it's honest.


Complexity of structural details isn't the same as complexity of emotions. We use the same word for it, but in context it refers to different concepts. Perhaps it's better to use the terms "dense" and "layered" to modify the word "complex".


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## bigshot

Argus said:


> Surely any novel that features content that isn't true is less honest than novels that are mostly based on reality.


See 126. I addressed those questions.


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## Argus

bigshot said:


> Does that clarify it? I'm trying hard to communicate with you.


You type so many words, yet so little (almost nothing) is relevant. They are just your opinions, not objective measurements of honesty.

I'll try a different tact again:

What if I think Kelly exhibits lots of human emotion, am I _wrong_ to think this?

What if I think the characters in The Ring are shallow, unbelievable and dishonest, am I _wrong_ to think this?


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## Argus

bigshot said:


> Complexity of structural details isn't the same as complexity of emotions. We use the same word for it, but in context it refers to different concepts. Perhaps it's better to use the terms "dense" and "layered" to modify the word "complex".


For the hundredth time the emotional element is not a part of the music but a part of the listener.


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## bigshot

Argus said:


> What if I think Kelly exhibits lots of human emotion, am I _wrong_ to think this?
> 
> What if I think the characters in The Ring are shallow, unbelievable and dishonest, am I _wrong_ to think this?


I would ask you what aspects you are looking for to discern honesty, and I would ask what elements in those works make you think they're dishonest. Then, I would listen carefully and try to understand. If you make strong arguments and your points are well taken, I'll agree with you.

Are these purely hypothetical questions?


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## bigshot

The emotional content is the intent of the composer. Wagner used a great many techniques... narratives, characters, leitmotifs, harmonic structure, plot, etc... to put across the emotion in his work. The emotion in Tristan and Gotterdammerung wasn't something that randomly occurred. It was *designed* that way.


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## Vesteralen

Here's where I don't understand the use of the word "honesty" in the contexts above. If you want to say the characters in Madame Butterfly are more one-dimensional, less realistic (or "true-to-life") than those found in other operas, fine. But, those words, though still somewhat subject to personal bias, are useful as descriptive terms relative to the achievements of the creators and the product they came up with. The word "honesty" used in the same context implies much more.

For Puccini's efforts to be described as "dishonest", you would have to establish the following: 1) He was personally responsible for the whole product (libretto and music); 2) His intent was to create characters that were "true-to-life"; and 3) He knowingly attempted to foist upon an unsuspecting public a substandard product in the hopes that they wouldn't notice it. 

If you feel his product was substandard, fine. You're entitled to that opinion, and to some degree, you may be able to prove it by comparing it to other works of a higher quality. But, I seriously doubt you can prove it was "dishonest".

In the case of the 1960's TV/movie music I referred to earlier, on the other hand, I think it would be possible to prove those three points (well, at least the last one, and with some modifications, the other two), and thereby prove dishonesty.


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## Argus

bigshot said:


> Are these purely hypothetical questions?


Yes. I like Kelly, as well as Miro and Pollock, but I wouldn't describe any of their art as emotional _or_ unemotional, likewise honest _or_ dishonest. Those are just words that reflect the taste of the viewer and not the content of the paintings. One person may find neoplasiticism or hard edge to be more honest than expressionistic or colourfield work, another vice versa, that's their opinions. To talk about the actual physical content of the paintings would be another matter, but their relation to the viewer will always be subjective when it extends beyond these physical characteristics. Honesty and emotion are not physical characteristics.

This debate reminds me more and more of this scene:


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## bigshot

I don't know if Puccini was creating an inferior product, or intended to be less honest in his characterizations and more symbolic. He was just doing things Puccini's way, and that was an aspect of his art. If you value honesty in emotions and characterizations, Wagner is going to be better than Puccini, but if you value melody and pretty arias, you are going to prefer te latter. It all depends on your criteria.


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## Vesteralen

bigshot said:


> Complexity of structural details isn't the same as complexity of emotions. We use the same word for it, but in context it refers to different concepts. Perhaps it's better to use the terms "dense" and "layered" to modify the word "complex".


Well, I must apologize, because I was not exactly trying to be free from sarcasm in this particular post.

However, someone who happens to like abstract forms of modern jazz might just as easily use the word "layered" back at you. In the case of both "The Ring" and, let's say, Ornette Coleman, you are talking about somewhat arcane things that can both put off the casual listener and "honestly" intrigue the initiated.


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## bigshot

Argus said:


> Yes. I like Kelly, as well as Miro and Pollock, but I wouldn't describe any of their art as emotional _or_ unemotional, likewise honest _or_ dishonest.


What aspects of their work do you single out as being good then?


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## Argus

Vesteralen said:


> But, I seriously doubt you can prove it was "dishonest".


This is the crux of the argument. If something cannot be proven it is just an opinion. Which is fine as long as people are aware of this.


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## Vesteralen

bigshot said:


> If you value honesty in emotions and characterizations, Wagner is going to be better than Puccini, but if you value melody and pretty arias, you are going to prefer te latter. It all depends on your criteria.


No, I think it all depends on your definition of the word "honesty". Substitute the word "realism" here and I'll buy it.


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## Argus

bigshot said:


> What aspects of their work do you single out as being good then?


Colour, shape and form.


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## bigshot

Vesteralen said:


> However, someone who happens to like abstract forms of modern jazz might just as easily use the word "layered" back at you. In the case of both "The Ring" and, let's say, Ornette Coleman, you are talking about somewhat arcane things that can both put off the casual listener and "honestly" intrigue the initiated.


Again, complexity of structure and complexity of emotion aren't the same sort of "complex". Complexity of structure like Ornette Coleman requires a certain amount of experience to translate it and understand the grammar it's using. Just like reading Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in the original old English. It requires a considerable amount of work on the part of the listener to fully appreciate it.

Complex emotions aren't difficult to feel. They are direct and don't require translation. They're complex because they are multifaceted, not because they might be difficult to translate without experience.

Neither complex emotions nor complex structure are automatically good or bad. They're aspects of art that can be used to create either good art or bad art. It depends on how the aspects are employed.

I'm not being sarcastic in my replies. I'm engaging in a dialogue and I'm trying to understand what other people say and reply to them with respect. Hopefully, everyone is trying to do that.


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## bigshot

Argus said:


> Colour, shape and form.


What about the color, shape and form is good? Bad art can have color, shape and form too.


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## bigshot

Vesteralen said:


> No, I think it all depends on your definition of the word "honesty". Substitute the word "realism" here and I'll buy it.


If that word describes my intent to you better than honesty, that's fine. Relatability? Empathy? Identifiability?


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## Argus

bigshot said:


> What about the color, shape and form is good? Bad art can have color, shape and form too.


The colours, shapes and forms are good because I like them. Bad art has colours, forms and shapes I don't like.

The colours, shapes and forms are objective but their interpretation is subjective.



> I'm engaging in a dialogue and I'm trying to understand what other people say and reply tothem with respect. Hopefully, everyone is trying to do that.


I'm trying to understand how you continually fail to understand what other people are saying. Then maybe I can understand how to better make you understand my own understandings. Understand?


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## HarpsichordConcerto

Argus said:


> For the hundredth time the emotional element is not a part of the music but a part of the listener.


You speaking on behalf of all composers who ever wrote music, right?


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## Argus

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> You speaking on behalf of all composers who ever wrote music, right?


No. I'm speaking on behalf of people who understand the difference between things that exist in the mind and things that exist in the physical world. So don't worry I'm not speaking on behalf of you.


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## HarpsichordConcerto

Argus said:


> No. I'm speaking on behalf of people who understand the difference between things that exist in the mind and things that exist in the physical world. So don't worry I'm not speaking on behalf of you.


For someone who dislikes a huge range of classical music, you sure think you know how to speak on behalf of a lot of us here in a classcial music forum. And thank you for not speaking on behalf of me. I surely never wished you ever did.


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## Vesteralen

bigshot said:


> Again, complexity of structure and complexity of emotion aren't the same sort of "complex". Complexity of structure like Ornette Coleman requires a certain amount of experience to translate it and understand the grammar it's using. Just like reading Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in the original old English. It requires a considerable amount of work on the part of the listener to fully appreciate it.
> 
> Complex emotions aren't difficult to feel. They are direct and don't require translation. They're complex because they are multifaceted, not because they might be difficult to translate without experience.
> 
> Neither complex emotions nor complex structure are automatically good or bad. They're aspects of art tat can be used to create either good art or bad art. It depends on how the aspects are employed.
> 
> I'm not being sarcastic in my replies. I'm engaging in a dialogue and I'm trying to understand what other people say and reply tothem with respect. Hopefully, everyone is trying to do that.


I appreciate the overall level-headedness of your responses, bigshot. I want to do the same.

Perhaps Ornette Coleman wasn't the best example to use above, but you referred to the more abstract forms of modern jazz in an earlier post, and what I said about OC, I could have said about many other examples perhaps a bit more to the point.

I am aware of the differences between complexity of structure and complex emotions, and I think linking the two tends to make us talk at cross-purposes. My only point is that - yes, certain things (like some modern jazz) can make us scratch our heads in dismissive wonderment, just as unrealistic emotional development in a character can make us scratch our heads in dismissive disbelief. But, "honesty" and "dishonesty" are terms that imply much more than a failure to communicate well or a failure to achieve the highest realism in art. They imply some kind of purposeful deception. I just don't see how the examples you used can be said unequivocally to demonstrate that.

If a 1960s TV producer walked in and told his on-staff composer, "I want you to come up with something that sounds like the stuff kids dance to today so we can show all these kids doing the twist", the end result would likely be musically dishonest - a deliberate effort to counterfeit a sound with absolutely nothing initrinsically musical about it. It would be the result of a kind of cynical attitude toward the viewing public.

I don't think that any one of us is in a position to say that about Puccini or about some modern jazz group.


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## Petwhac

What a load of waffle about nothing.
What has 'honesty' got to do with music? Open your ears.
As for Wagner, he was a lousy philosopher. Who cares whether his characters display depth or are multi-dimentional.
There is only one reason that millions of people flock to the opera houses year after year, decade after decade to listen to him.
Because he wrote sublime _*music*_. That's the notes. The dots!
It is impossible for an abstract art form to be honest or dishonest. It's only people who can be.

To quote Picasso, "Art is a lie that reveals a truth".


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## clavichorder

My favorite things in music are probably in this order:

Underneath a quality of 1. "Formal Cohesion,"(Haydn, Bach, Beethoven, Mozart are classic examples)I enjoy music the most when these things are happening numbered in order of importance, which can be hard things to pin, but I'm going to attempt:
2. "Quirkiness"-a quality that arises in music that formally "works" and yet seems really odd; Bruckner, Berlioz, Telemann, Stravinsky, Tcherepnin, and more: those composers really can do it.
3. "Density"-how concentrated textural and theme based musical activity is, Bach, Brahms, Medtner, Martinu, Hindemith; these composers tend to have that.
4. "Grandiosity"-Heart wrenching moments and thrilling bombasticism, bold like the beginning of Bruckner's 6th or the horn theme from Scriabin's Prometheus or full of anguish like Tchaikovsky's 6th. 

And others come after that I think.


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## bigshot

Vesteralen said:


> But, "honesty" and "dishonesty" are terms that imply much more than a failure to communicate well or a failure to achieve the highest realism in art.


Don't get hung up on the words. "Honesty" has a specific meaning in art terminology... It's art that comes from the life experience of the artist. "Dishonesty" isn't used. The opposite of "honesty" in art is "formula"- substituting abstract symbolic meaning for "honest" emotions. Realsm has a different meaning than how you are using it too. In art, "realism" is a rendering technique, as in "photo realism". "Realism" in art isn't necessarily a good thing because the artist is supposed to be presenting his own view, not just reflecting reality like a photograph.

The words don't matter. The concepts do, and I think you understand and agree with those.

In response to your analogy of 60s fake rock, I don't think that was a deliberate and intentional thing. I think it was just so far outside their frame of reference that the results of their attempt is funny sounding. Like asking Michaelangelo to paint in Picasso's style. The guys who scored music for TV were contracted to score all of it, no matter what style the scene called for. Sometimes they tried their best and just made a splat on the wall.


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## violadude

bigshot said:


> Don't get hung up on the words. "Honesty" has a specific meaning in art terminology... It's art that comes from the life experience of the artist. "Dishonesty" isn't used. The opposite of "honesty" in art is "formula"- substituting abstract symbolic meaning for "honest" emotions. Realsm has a different meaning than how you are using it too. In art, "realism" is a rendering technique, as in "photo realism". "Realism" in art isn't necessarily a good thing because the artist is supposed to be presenting his own view, not just reflecting reality like a photograph.
> 
> The words don't matter. The concepts do, and I think you understand and agree with those.


I don't think it is necessarily true that all music has to come from the emotional experiences of the person who wrote it.


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## peeyaj

Listening to Schubert's n late piano sonatas, I can discern the ''honesty'' of his work. Here is a guy, dying, writing his piano sonatas, a little time before his death. One can see, the outright loneliness and resignation, especially on the 2nd movement of D.960 sonata. It is just like Schubert saying ''Here it is. Read my state of my mind''.

When Schubert was ill with syphilis on 1822, his D.784 sonata, also showed this. 



/I'm being romantic.


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## bigshot

Argus said:


> I despise everything you hold dear musically, loathe your philosphical positions on music, abhor your unbridled elitism and I have about 300 CD's.


i live and breathe music. I love to listen to it, think about it and talk about it. My greatest joy is hearing new great music for the first time. When other people share new great music with me, I really appreciate it. I have over 10,000 CDs, 15,000 LPs and 78s, and an iTunes library with over a year and a half's worth of music in it.


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## bigshot

violadude said:


> I don't think it is necessarily true that all music has to come from the emotional experiences of the person who wrote it.


It doesn't have to, but it sure helps! Expressing someone else's emotions in art is like wearing someone else's pants. They do te job, but they aren't comfortable. Art at its best is a medium of personal expression. Just ask an artist.


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## violadude

bigshot said:


> It doesn't have to, but it sure helps! Expressing someone else's emotions in art is like wearing someone else's pants. They do te job, but they aren't comfortable. Art at its best is a medium of personal expression. Just ask an artist.


I think expressing something personal in your music is only one way to go about doing things. There are other levels of musical expression as well such as expression of outward ideas (political or social) an expression of an abstract musical idea. Restricting musical expression to personal emotions is a rather narrow view in my opinion.


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## bigshot

peeyaj said:


> Listening to Schubert's n late piano sonatas, I can discern the ''honesty'' of his work.


Mahler is another example. Imagine a conductor presenting a Mahler symphony as just notes on a page. Expression is everything. If you're an artist and you're not saying anything, you must be dead.


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## bigshot

violadude said:


> I think expressing something personal in your music is only one way to go about doing things. There are other levels of musical expression as well such as expression of outward ideas (political or social) an expression of an abstract musical idea. Restricting musical expression to personal emotions is a rather narrow view in my opinion.


Didactic and abstract exercises are fine for some. I'll stick to personal expression. I'm a lot more interested in humanity than I am theoretical concepts and politics. I think the landscape of the inner soul is more interesting and far reaching than the landscape of the outer world.

Edit: i just sat down and thought about this and perhaps humanity is receding in the modern world. Society has grown Autistic... Emotions are something to be eliminated. Business has no empathy. The internet and anonymity turn people into self centered things that they could never be in real life. Politics is about us and them, not real world issues. People distance themselves. Movies replace characters and their interrelationships with special effects and motion capture symbols of characters. Music is shallow and commercial or abstract and obtuse. What a world! It's a very good thing that I have the friends I have. Artists make great friends. We can disagree and fight on occasion, but there is aways warmth and humanity underneath.


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## violadude

bigshot said:


> Didactic and abstract exercises are fine for some. I'll stick to personal expression. I'm a lot more interested in humanity than I am theoretical concepts and politics. I think the landscape of the inner soul is more interesting and far reaching than the landscape of the outer world.
> 
> Edit: i just sat down and thought about this and perhaps humanity is receding in the modern world. Society has grown Autistic... Emotions are something to be eliminated. Business has no empathy. The internet and anonymity turn people into self centered things that they could never be in real life. Politics is about us and them, not real world issues. People distance themselves. Movies replace characters and their interrelationships with special effects and motion capture symbols of characters. Music is shallow and commercial or abstract and obtuse. What a world! It's a very good thing that I have the friends I have. Artists make great friends. We can disagree and fight on occasion, but there is aways warmth and humanity underneath.


Well, I think humanity has always existed to more or less the same degree as it does now. Think back on the way the catholic church taking advantage of the superstition of the poor, the crusades, the slave trade, the male dominated structure of society up until now, witch hunts. People really haven't gotten any better or worse in my opinion...


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## Vesteralen

bigshot said:


> Don't get hung up on the words. "Honesty" has a specific meaning in art terminology... It's art that comes from the life experience of the artist. "Dishonesty" isn't used. The opposite of "honesty" in art is "formula"- substituting abstract symbolic meaning for "honest" emotions. Realsm has a different meaning than how you are using it too. In art, "realism" is a rendering technique, as in "photo realism". "Realism" in art isn't necessarily a good thing because the artist is supposed to be presenting his own view, not just reflecting reality like a photograph.
> 
> The words don't matter. The concepts do, and I think you understand and agree with those.
> 
> In response to your analogy of 60s fake rock, I don't think that was a deliberate and intentional thing. I think it was just so far outside their frame of reference that the results of their attempt is funny sounding. Like asking Michaelangelo to paint in Picasso's style. The guys who scored music for TV were contracted to score all of it, no matter what style the scene called for. Sometimes they tried their best and just made a splat on the wall.


I don't disagree with you on some of the overall points you are making - you read me right on that.

And, I hate to extend the bickering over words...but, I can't leave it entirely alone either, because your response above sort of calls for it.

My use of the word "realism", no matter what the artistic sense of the word is, was triggered by your referring to Puccini's characters as not being true to life (or "realistic").

And, again, no matter how the word "honesty" may or may not be used in talking about art, the word carries with it at least this much baggage - that when we accuse an artist of not having produced "honest" art (whether or not that makes it "dishonest" art), we aren't just saying it is substandard - we are saying that it's somehow fraudulent - that it does not come from a real intent to speak from what is in her/his heart or mind. All I'm saying is that, as a listener, we can only say we don't like or don't respond positively to what came out of that person. We can not definitively say from where it did or didn't come. (Except in cases like my 60s example above, where, no matter who the poor slob who had to write it was, it came from a corporate decision to try to be relevant and "hip".)

And, I guess that's about all I can say on this rather exhausted subject.


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## bigshot

Try "observed" (derived from observation of life around us) vs. "symbolic" (archetypes and formulas). Is that clearer? Those are similar terms artists use for this too. Add to that a personal heartfelt point of view as opposed to an abstact intellectual concept and we have all the bases covered.


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## Cnote11

Wow, so many interesting responses on what elements people like in their music.


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## bigshot

violadude said:


> Well, I think humanity has always existed to more or less the same degree as it does now.


I think it's varied a lot from age to age. Some historical periods embrace emotion more and some value reason. Today, we seem to have selected "none of the above".


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## Vesteralen

bigshot said:


> The internet and anonymity turn people into self centered things that they could never be in real life. Politics is about us and them, not real world issues. People distance themselves. Movies replace characters and their interrelationships with special effects and motion capture symbols of characters. Music is shallow and commercial or abstract and obtuse.


You know, unpopular as it may be to say this, I actually sympathize with much of this. "Good old days"? No. Not really. Growing up with bomb shelters in every public building, Vietnam and the Cold War was no picnic. In it's own way it was The Age of Anxiety Part 3. And, some people could be crude, cruel and nasty. But, the character of modern anxiety is not the same. It's its own animal - and some of the things you mentioned do indeed seem to characterize it.


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## bigshot

It's strange that WWI and WWIi would coincide with (or perhaps induce?) a flowering of creativity. I guess there's strength in adversity. Maybe if things continue to be difficult for people, we as a society might start developing some nobility. It better hurry up!


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## violadude

bigshot said:


> I think it's varied a lot from age to age. Some historical periods embrace emotion more and some value reason. Today, we seem to have selected "none of the above".


Can you provide examples? I provided examples for my case.


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## bigshot

The Rennaissance was a rennaissance and in the Age of Reason, they valued reason more than before.


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## violadude

bigshot said:


> The Rennaissance was a rennaissance and in the Age of Reason, they valued reason more than before.


Perhaps more than the age right before it. But I wouldn't say they valued reason more than the Ancient Greeks for example. And in any case, I thought we were talking about humanity


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## Krummhorn

As a reminder ... 



Forum Rules said:


> *Guidelines for General Behavior*
> 
> Be polite to your fellow members. If you disagree with them, please state your opinion in a »civil« and respectful manner. This applies to all communication taking place on talkclassical.com . . .
> 
> Do not post comments about other members person or »posting style« on the forum (unless said comments are unmistakably positive). Argue opinions all you like but do not get personal and never resort to »ad homs«.


Further:



Policies said:


> The owners/administrators of Talk Classical reserve the right to remove, edit, move or close any thread for any reason.


Numerous posts have either been edited or deleted ... 'nuff said


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## Petwhac

bigshot said:


> Art at its best is a medium of personal expression. Just ask an artist.


I totally disagree with your statement. Why would I be interested in composer X's _personal _emotions. I'm only interested in the affect the music has on _my_ emotions or aesthetic experience. Great art is not _persona_l expression, it's _universal _expression (universal in a narrower sense in that it requires a shared aesthetic)
I hate it when commentators 'hear' the suffering of the composer in a work. That is just the listener projecting.
I once heard a conductor/pundit say that Mozart's troubled mind (at the time) could be detected in the slow movement of 'Eine Kleine..'. Really? Well anyone who can say that is, in my opinion, unaware of the creative process.
Obviously an artist's inner life has a bearing on their work, but only on a subconscious level. 
Music, above all the arts is abstract. That we react emotionally in such a powerful way is quite frankly miraculous. But a work is _not_ an analogue of the artists emotions.

Do you think Bach was consciously expressing _himself_ ? I think Bach is art at it's best, don't you?


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## bigshot

Bach said that his music was intended to glorify God.

"Every piece of music is a form of personal expression for its creator... If a work doesn’t express the composer’s own personal point of view, his own ideas, then it doesn’t, in my opinion, even deserve to be born." -Dmitri Shostakovich

"A musician cannot move others unless he too is moved. He must of necessity feel all of the affects that he hopes to arouse in his audience, for the revealing of his own humour will stimulate a like humour in the listener. -C.P.E. Bach

"Every man's work, whether it be literature or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself." - Samuel Butler (1612-80), English poet, author


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## Petwhac

bigshot said:


> Bach said that his music was intended to glorify God.
> 
> "Every piece of music is a form of personal expression for its creator... If a work doesn't express the composer's own personal point of view, his own ideas, then it doesn't, in my opinion, even deserve to be born." -Dmitri Shostakovich
> 
> "A musician cannot move others unless he too is moved. He must of necessity feel all of the affects that he hopes to arouse in his audience, for the revealing of his own humour will stimulate a like humour in the listener. -C.P.E. Bach


"Music, by its very nature, is essentially powerless to express anything at all, whether a feeling, an attitude of mind, a psychological mood, a phenomenon of nature, etc…. Expression has never been an inherent property of music. That is by no means the purpose of its existence." - Stravinsky

Bach intended his music to glorify god? So then I presume it wasn't all about himself then.

Of course a composer 'feels' what he's/she's writing otherwise, why do it? I just take exception to the notion of conscious, deliberate 'self expression'. 
Take the 1st prelude from the 48, it is indeed beautiful but what do you suppose Bach was trying to express? I'll tell you, he was expressing a progression of harmonies moving gradually away from the tonic and later returning, taking a few detours on the way. He was expressing a sequence of chords that sounded good, beautiful, perhaps moving, to him. It has nothing to do with his emotional state at the time. Art is created one step removed from emotion.


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## bigshot

Are you an artist or musician, Petwhac?


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## Petwhac

bigshot said:


> Are you an artist or musician, Petwhac?


I confess yes. A composer, of sorts.


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## Vesteralen

Petwhac said:


> "Music, by its very nature, is essentially powerless to express anything at all"


I'm not sure I understand or agree with Igor on this. But, when I think of my own playing skills in relation to what he said, I have to laugh. It's certainly true of me...


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## Argus

bigshot said:


> i live and breathe music. I love to listen to it, think about it and talk about it. My greatest joy is hearing new great music for the first time. When other people share new great music with me, I really appreciate it. I have over 10,000 CDs, 15,000 LPs and 78s, and an iTunes library with over a year and a half's worth of music in it.


That's very nice, but I was talking to HarpsichordConcerto. Considering your greatest joy is hearing new music, you do seem to rag on a lot of it.

There is plenty music posted here that I don't like but I don't feel the need to give my opinion on everything I don't like, unless it's Mozart or opera which deserve to be ragged on on principal.

Back to 'honesty':

Listen to Petwhac, he is echoing my sentiments (not to mention the blatant truth) that any emotion (or information beyond the physical) we receive from music, is indicatative of our own feelings when we hear the music and not necessarily those of the composer.

Anybody who says one music is more honest than any other, just by listening to the music, does not understand music.


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## bigshot

Vesteralen said:


> I'm not sure I understand or agree with Igor on this. But, when I think of my own playing skills in relation to what he said, I have to laugh. It's certainly true of me...


Stravinsky said a lot of things that were contrary for the sake of it. He was a master of the classical music one liner.


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## bigshot

Petwhac said:


> I confess yes. A composer, of sorts.


Have you had a chance to have any of your works performed?

I have a friend who has done everything from punk rock to country to classical. He was invited to compose, arrange and conduct a piece with a smphony orchestra. I have no idea how that would feel, but it must be great.


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## bigshot

Argus said:


> There is plenty music posted here that I don't like but I don't feel the need to give my opinion on everything I don't like, unless it's Mozart or opera which deserve to be ragged on on principal.
> 
> Anybody who says one music is more honest than any other, just by listening to the music, does not understand music.


i would love to be as "bad" a composer as Mozart! And there are some wonderful operas. Perhaps you just don't understand that music. The good news is, when you're young, you have plenty of time to come around to it later. Perhaps you'll also see the deeper communicative levels of music someday. It helps to create yourself and have a fire under yourself to create something great.


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## Argus

bigshot said:


> Stravinsky said a lot of things that were contrary for the sake of it. He was a master of the classical music one liner.


Maybe he did, but that quote makes perfect sense.



bigshot said:


> i would love to be as "bad" a composer as Mozart! And there are some wonderful operas. Perhaps you just don't understand that music. The good news is, when you're young, you have plenty of time to come around to it later. Perhaps you'll also see the deeper communicative levels of music someday. It helps to create yourself and have a fire under yourself to create something great.


Maybe one day I'll grow to love opera and/or Mozart. Who knows? But the important thing is the present, and right now I don't love them.

As an aside, I'd be interested in your opinion of the following musical styles (I assume you're more than familiar with them seeing as you have such a gargantuan record collection and are a big music fan):

-Italo house
-Dubstep
-Canterbury scene
-Plunderphonics
-Dancehall
-Juju
-Sludge metal
-Onkyo
-Juke

I'd be very interested in any of your learned opinions on these musics.


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## Petwhac

Argus said:


> There is plenty music posted here that I don't like but I don't feel the need to give my opinion on everything I don't like, unless it's Mozart or opera which deserve to be ragged on on principal.


Surely you jest! Nothing from the later symphonies and concertos? A bit of the Requiem? Any string quintets or quartets?



Argus said:


> Anybody who says one music is more honest than any other, just by listening to the music, does not understand music.


Anyone who can't find anything to like in all of opera from Monteverdi to P. Glass and beyond cannot really understand music either.:lol:


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## Argus

Petwhac said:


> Anyone who can't find anything to like in all of opera from Monteverdi to P. Glass and beyond cannot really understand music either.:lol:


Okay, Einstein on the Beach, some Robert Ashley and Partch's Delusion of the Fury, but they have about as much in common with Monteverdi and Verdi as English football has to American football.

As for Mozart, it's not so much a dislike of his music as his music constantly reminds me of a totally unrelated series of sounds. Some people may like these unrelated sounds and that makes sense that they like Mozart, but it ain't to my liking.


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## bigshot

Argus said:


> As an aside, I'd be interested in your opinion of the following musical styles


Not familiar with those, but it's very hard to keep up with the nomenclature of modern popular music. I may have heard some of it without knowing the name for it. Today it seems there are a million names for very similar things. In the first half of the 20th century, there were a small number of names that described radically different kinds of music. Exact opposite.

The areas of music I've investigated so far (in greater and lesser degrees) are...

Progressive Rock/Album Oriented Rock/New Wave (never listen to any of this any more- grew out of it)
Classical (from early music through the mid 20th century)
Opera (from Handel through Berg)
Early popular music (pioneer recordings by Edison and Victor, 20s dance bands)
Jazz (from ragtime and tin pan alley through post Bop)
Blues (pre-War through early 70s)
Country (folk, bluegrass, cowboy, western swing, honky tonk, C&W)
Rhythm & Blues (from jump blues through late 60s soul)
Rock n' Roll (from early Rockabilly through the late 60s)
Popular Music (pop vocals, easy listening, percussion, big band swing, sweet bands, lounge, 50s and 60s pop)
Ethnic (gamelan, Hawaiian slack key guitar, Cuban mambo, Mexican epoca de oro, Columbian cumbia, Brazillian, a little African)
Library music, classic soundtracks and light classical
Novelty records (polka, comedy, outsider)

My cutoff line is shortly after rock began becoming fused with other genres... Fusion jazz, country rock, Latin jazz rock, etc. (Blues influenced rock isn't bad though.) it's weird how jazz seems to have improved any genre that fused with it, but rock ends up bulldozing genres when it fuses.

I'm still finding lots of new stuff in a lot of these genres... Classical and jazz seem inexhaustable, and there always seem to be interesting early 78s, obscure 50s R&R 45s and popular music turning up. I might have forgotten some genres. Hard to remember all of it at one time. The areas I'd like to explore more right now are Baroque, 60s R&B, 20s dance bands, and light classical.


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## bigshot

I'm guessing Einstein on the Beach was interesting as a stage presentation, but on records, it's like waiting for paint to dry. WAY too long and WAY too few variations in mood. I've been trying to like it since the 70s, and although I've started to listen to it a million times, I've never made it all the way through in one sitting. I have a pretty good sampling of Glass, but I've set him aside. Not enough there to make it worth my effort.

Mozart on the other hand is a different story. My opinion of his music has been changing over the past year. Originally, I thought of his stuff as fluffy and too pretty- lots of fancy fillagree without a lot of meat. I always liked the piano and horn concertos, some of the operas and some smphonies, but i didn't go very far beyond that. But recently I got the Brilliant complete box set and ripped it and put it into rotation in my classical iTunes library, and I'm finding that it is a richer vein of music than I had given it credit for.

I have the Hanssler Bach box too, but I haven't ripped that yet. I should, becase I bet there are a lot of treasures there that are unknown to me too.


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## Argus

bigshot said:


> I'm still finding lots of new stuff in a lot of these genres... Classical nd jazz seem inexhaustable, and there always seem to be interesting early 78s, obscure 50s R&R 45s and popular music turning up. I might have forgotten some genres. Hard to remember all of it at one time. The areas I'd like to explore more right now are Baroque, 60s R&B, 20s dance bands, and light classical.


As I suspected. You, sir, are an anti-modernist (with a lower case M). I asked you about mostly modern (1970s on) genres precisely because I estimated that you either wouldn't know them or downright dislike them.

Rather than you telling me I don't 'understand' Mozart (a composer from over 200 years ago), maybe you should look at your own inability to appreciate the music of now, the present.

To me, anybody who dismisses contemporary music comes across as an old codger (even if they are young) overcome with nostalgia (or false belief in a Golden Age), and unable to remove the rose tinted glasses and listen without prejudice.

Maybe you'll like some Italo house or dubstep, how do you know if you don't try it?


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## Argus

bigshot said:


> I'm guessing Einstein on the Beach was interesting as a stage presentation, but on records, it's like waiting for paint to dry. WAY too long and WAY too few variations in mood. I've been trying to like it since the 70s, and although I've started to listen to it a million times, I've never made it all the way through in one sitting. I have a pretty good sampling of Glass, but I've set him aside. Not enough there to make it worth my effort.


Perhaps you just don't 'understand' the music of Philip Glass. The bad news is you're old and don't have as much time to come around to it later. Perhaps you'll also see that there are no deeper levels of communication in the actual music someday.


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## Cnote11

"Ethnic" "Brazilian" "a little African..." I'll give you the benefit of the doubt on your post.


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## bigshot

Argus said:


> As I suspected. You, sir, are an anti-modernist (with a lower case M). I asked you about mostly modern (1970s on) genres precisely because I estimated that you either wouldn't know them or downright dislike them.


i don't dislike current music, I just find that the good stuff seems to be sprinkled all over the place. It isn't all congregated into convenient broad genres like jazz and classical is. Some of it doesn't fit into any category at all, like Jake Shimabukaro and Tom Waits. It's a lot more work sifting wheat from chaffe in current music. I still remember how excited I was when I first heard Prince. That guy is a drop dead genius and for a while I had a definite target to focus my attention on. There are a few artists like that in the past thirty years or so, but they're rare. Most good modern music is isolated and scattered. The business of music has fragmented itself.

I am always open to being turned on to contemporary music, but I find that a lot of the people who listen to it don't have enough of a grounding in other kinds of music to be able to break it down and sort it and articulate what makes it great. They tend to like what is in front of them "because they like it". I was like that up until my mid 20s when I realized how deep and how broad the ocean of great music was. Luckily, I found people who really knew their stuff who could articulate what makes music great to point me to breadcrumbs that lead to wonderful discoveries.

I haven't found the right person for contemporary music yet. Everyone I find is narrow and defensive instead of broadminded and helpful. They spend more time telling me what they hate instead of sharing what I might like with me. I'm sure that isn't the music's fault. I'm patient. There's a lot of other stuff to appreciate in the meantime.

And I don't waste a moment worrying about the inxperience of youth. I was there once and I got along fine eventually. I found that with myself, ignorance is curable. It just takes a little thinking.


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## bigshot

Argus said:


> Perhaps you'll also see that there are no deeper levels of communication in the actual music someday.


There are some things that once they're revealed, they can never be taken away. I learned about the meaning behind jazz from classical music, and country music taught me a lot about ethnic musics. Music is a language and diversity creates fluency. I get better and better at discerning the things music has to say every day. If I was a musician, I could probably articulate it more dirctly, but since I'm not, I have to use analogies to get the concepts across.


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## Argus

bigshot said:


> I haven't found the right person for contemporary music yet. Everyone I find is narrow and defensive instead of broadminded and helpful. They spend more time telling me what they hate instead of sharing what I might like with me. I'm sure that isn't the music's fault. I'm patient. There's a lot of other stuff to appreciate in the meantime.


I've posted plenty new music on this forum for people to listen to, so have plenty of other people, Cnote, Philip, Iforgotmypassword, someguy etc. It's up to you to listen to it and find what you like. If you telling me you don't like any of the videos/recommendations in any of mine of theirs posts, then you must be the one who is narrow and defensive.

P.S. Prince is an extremely talented and creative musician and I really like some of his music, but I wouldn't place him amongst my top 1000 favourite living musicians, but you should know that is just my _opinion_.


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## Argus

bigshot said:


> If I was a musician, I could probably articulate it more dirctly, but since I'm not, I have to use analogies to get the concepts across.


Well, I am a musician (which is entirely irrelevant to this debate), and I think you are talking out of the wrong hole.


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## Cnote11

Could we please stop using the term "ethnic music". It is absolutely ridiculous.


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## bigshot

Argus said:


> I've posted plenty new music on this forum for people to listen to, so have plenty of other people, Cnote, Philip, Iforgotmypassword, someguy etc. It's up to you to listen to it and find what you like.


No, i'm not looking to find a random needle in a haystack. I'm searching for a person who has the background in the history of music who can put modern music into context in the continuum... Someone who can understand what I'm looking for who can guide me. "I like because I like and that's just another opinion" doesn't help me at all. I could just go out and buy every new CD that comes out and randomly stumble across things. Random is too much work. I'm looking for someone with a knack for curatorship. That's what I try to provide when someone comes to me to mine my experience for tips.


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## bigshot

Cnote11 said:


> Could we please stop using the term "ethnic music". It is absolutely ridiculous.


How about "music by foreigners"?

Are we going down another semantic rabbit hole now? If so, I'll stand by and listen to my CD of pygmies in the Ituri Forest instead.


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## bigshot

Argus said:


> Well, I am a musician


Tell me about your music.


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## Cnote11

I'm sorry, but this isn't a mere semantics debate. It is completely inaccurate labeling that needs to stop being spread about by people with mentalities such as yourself. You should treat the music with more respect then to paint it with such a broad-stroke. Would you, when describing what music you listen to, say you listen to "European music". That honestly could mean anything, as could Brazilian and "a little African". I find the way you treat "ethnic music" and the way you think about "ethnic people" in your posts deplorable and more than semantic squabbling. It speaks greatly to the way you view the world, and is honestly outdated ad does nothing to promote better knowledge of what you're speaking of.


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## bigshot

Well, if we're all so determined to be subjective, from my perspective music from exotic cultures other than my own is "foreign". I have no objections to people referring to my concept of traditional classical music as "European". That is an accurate division. So is "historical" or even "old music" as opposed to "modern music". I'm fine with someone in China referring to their music as "classical" and ours as "ethnic" or "Western" if they want to. Everything is relative and it isn't hard to know where people are coming from. I certainly don't feel the need to constantly keep replacing my perspective with some politically correct world view. That's like shoehorning gender modifiers like "him (or her!)" into every sentence you can. I have bigger fish to fry when I'm talking about things than to worry about individual descriptive words. You can feel free to describe things however you'd like to from your perspective. I'll know what you're talking about.

In fact, I actually do like European "ethnic" music like traditional German polka and yodelling and gypsy music. I also think those little leather shorts and those green felt hats with little horsehair tufts on them look very funny. Wooden shoes make me giggle too!

I visited the Golden Triangle in the Orient once and the hill people there thought I was hilarious looking. They all laughed and wanted to touch me and take me home to show to their families. I had a poloroid camera and shot pictures of me with them and their kids and their water buffalo and their grandmother... and gave the photos to them to keep. They kept pointing to me in the pictures and laughing. It didn't bother me in the least. I thought it was fun to mutually enjoy our differences. I kept a couple of pictures of us myself and every time I look at them I laugh too remembering it.


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## Argus

bigshot said:


> No, i'm not looking to find a random needle in a haystack. I'm searching for a person who has the background in the history of music who can put modern music into context in the continuum... Someone who can understand what I'm looking for who can guide me. "I like because I like and that's just another opinion" doesn't help me at all. I could just go out and buy every new CD that comes out and randomly stumble across things. Random is too much work. I'm looking for someone with a knack for curatorship. That's what I try to provide when someone comes to me to mine my experience for tips.


So you have no problem with being a lazy listener? That's okay.

However, random isn't hard work, it's rewarding. You find things you wouldn't have found otherwise. You become open to new things.

You can be a lazy listener, you can listen to just Mozart endelessly day after day for what it matters to me, but try not to tell people there are right or wrong ways to listen to music.


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## bigshot

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to know everything and always be right. The problem is, I'm so far from that, my tiny brain can't even conceive of it. I envy people who can be so confident of their own infallibility. It must be very reassuring to know.


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## Cnote11

But when you refer to "Brazilian music" you aren't going from up through classification. You could say Bossa Nova is a Brazilian music form and that would be correct. If you plain said "European music" then it isn't intelligible. I'm not attempting to be politically correct, for the record, nor do I believe with the specific pronouns, although some languages have that heavily built it, such as French. I just don't care for the purely wrong usage of "ethnic" in the way most people use it, as if it refers to everybody that isn't them. If we're going to use a term I think we should use it correctly. Otherwise, we get too many people walking around forming opinions based on things which actually mean something radically different from what they think it means. I see it far too often. Plus, I'm not a big fan of such centrism. Nor do I find it charming to look at others as "exotic" and "funny". It is often an ignorant and romanticized viewpoint and is out of touch with reality that leads to distortion, in both perceived positive and very negative ways.


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## bigshot

I find it very difficult to not find people funny looking. God has a sense of humor when it comes to skull shapes. Every time I end up sitting at the counter in a coffee shop at 1 am, I'm surrounded by funny looking people. I don't mind being one of them myself. Next time you see me on the street, feel free to laugh. It's much more becoming than a perpetual scowl of disapproval.


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## Cnote11

That isn't what I mean. A lot of people do not listen to music in a genuine way. They do it for an "exotic flavor" like teenage girls who have a single piece of a movement from Mozart on their ipod, or the Americans who lapped up exotica 50 years ago. It reminds me of so many people who go to foreign countries and stay in an Americanized plush resorts and then go on about their "ethnic travels".


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## violadude

bigshot said:


> How about "music by foreigners"?


That doesn't really make any since either...since all music written is written by foreigners to someone.

"Traditional music" would be the term I would use. Or folk music.


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## bigshot

Cnote11 said:


> That isn't what I mean. A lot of people do not listen to music in a genuine way. They do it for an "exotic flavor" like teenage girls who have a single piece of a movement from Mozart on their ipod, or the Americans who lapped up exotica 50 years ago. It reminds me of so many people who go to foreign countries and stay in an Americanized plush resorts and then go on about their "ethnic travels".


Hah! I really don't care what teenagers have on their iPods. Mozart would probably be an improvement! And I love Martin Denny and Les Baxter. Technicolor exotica is beautiful! Plush resorts are fine, but try to find one in the Golden Triangle! You can't get a decent cup of coffee in Salt Lake City, and if you have a yen for Kentucky Fried Chicken in Koala Lampur, you're going to pay through the nose for it! You know what they say, "When in Rome..."


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## bigshot

violadude said:


> "Traditional music" would be the term I would use. Or folk music.


I was listening to Turkish Pop Music on internet radio the other day... It's not traditional or folk, it's just weird. I liked some of it, particularly the exotic vocals.


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## Cnote11

I too enjoy exotica, but not for the same reasons that it was popular for. Also, a single movement on an ipod is, in my opinion, insulting. It isn't the act of listening, it is how it is being attended to. They are marginalizing Mozart to a novelty.


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## Cnote11

bigshot said:


> I was listening to Turkish Pop Music on internet radio the other day... It's not traditional or folk, it's just weird. I liked some of it, particularly the exotic vocals.


I feel like he's talking like this now on purpose


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## bigshot

Groucho had Margaret Dumont!


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## clavichorder

Argus said:


> You can be a lazy listener, you can listen to just Mozart endelessly day after day for what it matters to me, but try not to tell people there are right or wrong ways to listen to music.


Will you please stop it with the Mozart bashing, Argus, its not necessary. I'm sure you are aware of the irony of telling people they have closed minds when you insist that Mozart is lazy listening. It really depends on the listener as you always say, and I suspect you just don't like it for reasons of principle, contrary to your idea that everything is about sound for you.


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## AlexD

Novelty - the ability to surprise more than anything else these days.

If my response is hey, that sounds like... then it doesn't engage unless there is something new added to it.


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## Cnote11

Alright, well that was fun bigshot. I sort of want to get this back on-topic. I've been guilty of shoving it off a few times . I wish we had more members who would comment. I feel this is a very universal topic. Also, I feel that people who love a certain thing in one music generally like it moving across music genres. That is the way they should be introduced to other genres, is through similar techniques that they enjoy. For an example: If someone enjoys simple rhythms in pop music they will typically find other music with simple rhythms in other genres more appealing than complex rhythms. The difference between knowing if someone will like one spectrum of the genre and what to recommend them, smooth jazz, to swing, to bop, free jazz, etc. It allows you to center in on music they would enjoy.


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## Vesteralen

Cnote11 said:


> I wish we had more members who would comment. I feel this is a very universal topic.


I actually had to go to the top of the screen to remind myself what the topic was. 

It's a question I can't really answer, because as I've said many times before, music is a part of my life in different ways. Sometimes I want melody, sometimes I want rhythm, sometimes I want harmony. I don't often want chainsaws. In fact, to be honest, I never want chainsaws.

I think I love two or three-part harmony more than anything. And, I love richness in sound. I tend to ramp up the middle values a lot.

Once in a while I want the wildly insistent and off-rhythm snare drums of Nielsen's 5th Symphony.

Sometimes, I just want to hear silence. Cage is good for that, I understand.


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## Cnote11

Hmm, chainsaws... this sounds like an interesting direction.


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## Argus

clavichorder said:


> Will you please stop it with the Mozart bashing, Argus, its not necessary. I'm sure you are aware of the irony of telling people they have closed minds when you insist that Mozart is lazy listening. It really depends on the listener as you always say, and I suspect you just don't like it for reasons of principle, contrary to your idea that everything is about sound for you.


I've explained many times that Mozart's music is basically a musical experiment in the recreation of the sound of a certain part of the human anatomy using musical instruments that are normally wholly unsuitable to create that kind of sound. I actually acknowledge the immense level of skill that Mozart must have possessed to achieve such a sonic replica of that damp **** sound. And he was consistent too. Every single piece of his attains that special sound throughout all his artistic periods. It's an almost unimaginable feat of dediacation to aural arsedom.

So you see I am actually very appreciative of Mozarts talent and artistic integrity to go against the then classical trend and strive for his vision, but saying that, _in my opinion_, I don't enjoy listening to it.


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## Argus

bigshot said:


> Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to know everything and always be right. The problem is, I'm so far from that, my tiny brain can't even conceive of it. I envy people who can be so confident of their own infallibility. It must be very reassuring to know.


I'm not always right, I'm just always less wrong than you are. Capiche?


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## Rapide

violadude said:


> Since the thread about what makes a composer's music great blew up and became a lot of bickering, I offer to purpose the question this way in a slightly altered version of the original question and I think this will give truckload more of the types of answers he was looking for.
> 
> This allows people to share their personal experience with what they consider to be great music, rather than trying to guess at what objectively great music (if there is such a thing) might be.
> 
> So if you are listening to a piece of music what kinds of things about it make the most impact on you? Does it depend on the genre? Is there a standard that you hold all music up to?


I look for engagement from the music that I listen, from Mozart to Boulez.


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## Rapide

Argus said:


> I've explained many times that Mozart's music is basically a musical experiment in the recreation of the sound of a certain part of the human anatomy using musical instruments that are normally wholly unsuitable to create that kind of sound. I actually acknowledge the immense level of skill that Mozart must have possessed to achieve such a sonic replica of that damp **** sound. And he was consistent too. Every single piece of his attains that special sound throughout all his artistic periods. It's an almost unimaginable feat of dediacation to aural arsedom.
> 
> So you see I am actually very appreciative of Mozarts talent and artistic integrity to go against the then classical trend and strive for his vision, but saying that, _in my opinion_, I don't enjoy listening to it.


Interesting opinion! Thanks for sharing but likely to be a very, very minority opinion shared by others.


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## Petwhac

Cnote11 said:


> ...Also, a single movement on an ipod is, in my opinion, insulting. It isn't the act of listening, it is how it is being attended to. They are marginalizing Mozart to a novelty.


Insulting to whom? Surely not the great man himself as he's been dead a while.
Marginalizing Mozart? As far as most teenage girls go, sadly, he's already pretty marginalised. Personally, I blame the parents and the schools!!


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## Vaneyes

It must be dissimilar. It must be unpredictable. Beauty, ugliness are less relevant alone--a successful relationship gets bonus points.


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## Cnote11

I don't care as much as I appear to, but it still is a bit insulting to the integrity of music itself. Are you serious about blaming the parents and the schools, and if so, why? I dislike when objects become status symbols or superficial in some way.


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## Petwhac

Argus said:


> I've explained many times that Mozart's music is basically a musical experiment in the recreation of the sound of a certain part of the human anatomy using musical instruments that are normally wholly unsuitable to create that kind of sound. I actually acknowledge the immense level of skill that Mozart must have possessed to achieve such a sonic replica of that damp **** sound. And he was consistent too. Every single piece of his attains that special sound throughout all his artistic periods. It's an almost unimaginable feat of dediacation to aural arsedom.


In that case, dear fellow Wishbone Ash fan, the likes of Robert Ashley and many others too numerous to mention, are not worthy of claiming their place as a stain on his underpants.


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## Petwhac

Cnote11 said:


> I don't care as much as I appear to, but it still is a bit insulting to the integrity of music itself. Are you serious about blaming the parents and the schools, and if so, why? I dislike when objects become status symbols or superficial in some way.


I was being a little tongue in cheek but yes, music education, in England at least, is failing to introduce the younger generations to one of western civilisation's greatest achievements.


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## Cnote11

HA! It is much worse in America. And yes, I did sense that tongue-in-cheek bit! Communicating such on the internet isn't as poor as people say.


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## bigshot

As much as I like the sound of requiring kids to learn about culture in school, I don't think it works to try to force them to take their culture medicine. The problem is the media. Popular media has the memory of a gnat. How can we expect kids to like Mozart when all they're exposed to is dubstep?! If we want appreciation of culture we have to create a rich culture in our everyday lives.


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## Cnote11

That seems like an odd comment coming from a guy who says he isn't familiar whatsoever with dubstep. Plus the fact that dubstep isn't close to the most popular music and that most people don't know anything about dubstep.


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## bigshot

Argus said:


> I actually acknowledge the immense level of skill that Mozart must have possessed to achieve such a sonic replica of that damp **** sound. And he was consistent too. Every single piece of his attains that special sound throughout all his artistic periods. It's an almost unimaginable feat of dediacation to aural arsedom.


wow! I went to concert of works by John Cage, and right in the middle of 4'33", someone in the audience played Mozart really loud!


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## bigshot

Cnote11 said:


> That seems like an odd comment coming from a guy who says he isn't familiar whatsoever with dubstep.


Ah! You and the moon... You wear a necktie so I'll know you.


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## neoshredder

bigshot said:


> wow! I went to concert of works by John Cage, and right in the middle of 4'33", someone in the audience played Mozart really loud!


Awesome. Breaking the silence.


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## Cnote11

Could you then say that John Cage composed Mozart?


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## neoshredder

Cnote11 said:


> Could you then say that John Cage composed Mozart?


In his dreams. He composed the audience.


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## Cnote11

He composed the universe


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## bigshot

I prefer recordings of Mozart to live performances because of the odor.


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## science

The odor of Mozart is nothing compared to the last few pages of this thread.


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## Argus

Petwhac said:


> In that case, dear fellow Wishbone Ash fan, the likes of Robert Ashley and many others too numerous to mention, are not worthy of claiming their place as a stain on his underpants.


That's a perfectly reasonable _opinion_ to hold, but I'm talking in terms of objective facts. I have done numerous spectrographic comparisons of Mozart pieces with soggy bum samples, and the spectrograms are almost indistinguishable.

I have also done several double blind experiments which involved playing random snippets of Mozart's music, interspersed with **** cheeks sounds, to people unfamiliar with the work of Mozart. 76% of those tested heard no discernible difference between to two sets of sounds, with 53% believing the experiment was rigged and in fact only **** noises were being played throughout.

This is not conjecture, it is empirical, scientific fact. Still, there is nothing wrong with liking Mozart.


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## bigshot

I have Murray Perahia on the phone here, Argus. He would like to record your farts. You did say you were a composer, right?


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## Argus

bigshot said:


> I have Murray Perahia on the phone here, Argus. He would like to record your farts. You did say you were a composer, right?


Tell him he's out of luck, it's not farts that sound like Mozart. It's the clacking together of the wettened cheeks under vigorous motion. Unfortunately, I'm not a very good performer since my **** doesn't have the desirable dimensions (too bony, not enough flab), but seeing as you hail from the USA you should have no problem locating a prime candidate for performance.


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## bigshot

Not as good a composer as Mozart, eh?


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