# Modern instrumentation vs tradition



## 009 (Jul 16, 2004)

Have u heard any classical music or any other genres played in modern or 'unlikely' instrumentation?
I've seen performance of Mozart's vocal work accompanied by jazz trumpet. And even more unusual... Baroque vocal works with sort of an African/Negro vocal backup :blink: ...
And not forgetting Yo Yo's Silk Road Ensemble... Which I'm still having reservations even till today... :mellow: 
And tubular bells and angklong with Bach. :huh: 
Whether these modern instrumentations do sound good...that I'm not so sure. But I think classical instruments do make marvellous, amazing transformation when used for modern music..
I love jazz clarinet. Alot of people don't see Jazz and Clarinet as the best fit...they find it hard to imagine any other combination other than the saxaphone.
I'll really love to see Jazz and obow...I wonder how it'll be...Fascinating! I'm sure! :lol:


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## becky (Jul 19, 2004)

I love to see artists modernize traditional music. I think it's very entertaining and quite fascinating. It's all part of the evolution of music. Sometimes people hear it and it sounds great and becomes a bit of a new norm. Most times it goes the the way of the dodo because it's too weird. I think it's fine as long as the traditional music is still mostly played traditionally (a little redundant, I know.)

I am a sort of move with the times person


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## Daniel (Jul 11, 2004)

I think, these modern instrumentations are quite interesting, but i do not listen to them much. Classical stuff with modern instrumentation, there I am a bit conservative, I do not like it often, hurts me when I listen to .


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## max (Jul 17, 2004)

> _Originally posted by daniel_@Jul 23 2004, 03:49 PM
> I think, these modern instrumentations are quite interesting, but i do not listen to them much. Classical stuff with modern instrumentation, there I am a bit conservative, I do not like it often, hurts me when I listen to .
> * [snapback]313[/snapback]​*


I whole heartedly agree with this. At Penn State many of the brass and woodwind majors play very odd transcriptions of Bach and Mozart for like saxaphone...

I once heard one of Bach's cello suites on trombone... quite weird if you ask me. And no, I didn't particulary like it...

But, I do think it is good to allow modern instruments to play the classics.

I guess I'm sitting on the fence for this one...


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## baroque flute (Jul 21, 2004)

I'm probably on the conservative side too. I don't like period instruments much, but I hate things like jazz trumpet, and modern percussion. (But then I personally hate Jazz, period!) I don't like cymbals (they make me tired and give me headaches  ). And I hate the trombone unless it is in the background in full orchestra (though I sometimes use it there myself). So for me it would depend on the particular case. I LOVE Arthur Fiedler's orchestra rendition of Bach's Chaconne--trombone (background! ) and cymbals and all (I think it was written for solo violin, and I don't think it is suited to that instrument at all!). I think Fiedler's orchestra arrangment of the Toccata and Fugue is great too. But I would feel like screaming if I heard a cello suite on trombone! So anyway, in some ways I'm a fussy person.


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## Daniel (Jul 11, 2004)

> *(But then I personally hate Jazz, period!)*


I dont like Jazz much either. This improvising stuff could be interesting yes, but maybe it is another reason why i don't love it: When i listened to Jazz, i can't listen to classical stuff after it, because it destroys the possibilty to do (You know what i mean?). But i WANT to listen to it, because it moves me more, so the result is, i don't listen to Jazz 

And besides this kind of virtuosic jazz improvisation sounds for me a bit similiar each time.


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## 009 (Jul 16, 2004)

> *When i listened to Jazz, i can't listen to classical stuff after it, because it destroys the possibilty to do (You know what i mean?).*


I know what u mean..  
It's like the classical music sounds 'broken' after that,
Do u think it's gotta do with the difference in pulsation and freedom of notes in jazz? So, it's like yr feel or rather co-ordinates( on a map)just 'shifted'....so if u listened to classical immediately after that, u'll feel strangely lost?
Sometimes I'll feel this this.
But I love to improvise. I've been trying to get a basic bossa nova rhythm these few days. It's really fun actually.


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## Daniel (Jul 11, 2004)

I think its not only the freedom of the improvisation, the problem for me is the atmosphere, the character....can't find into it.


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## baroque flute (Jul 21, 2004)

> _Originally posted by daniel_@Jul 25 2004, 06:03 PM
> *I think its not only the freedom of the improvisation, the problem for me is the atmosphere, the character....can't find into it.
> [snapback]426[/snapback]​*


I agree. And for me I feel lost after Jazz period.


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## Op.123 (Mar 25, 2013)

Traditional

(Sorry Moody, this is a very old thread)


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

I would be interested to hear renditions done digitally, a la Vangelis...


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

In my horn playing days, I frequently performed a transcrption of the Bach cello suites for horn .
They work very well on horn and are very enjoyable to play , but it's too strenuous to perform entire suites
let alone all six consecutively . 
The diificult thing about playing the horn is not the breathing, but the pressure of the mouthpiece on the lips, which become tender and sore after a strenuous session of rehearsing or playing .
The higher the note, the more pressure on the lips . In Bach's day and all the way to the early 19th century ,horns and trumpets had no valves , and every time you played in a different key you had to change onto a different length of tubing caled a crook . The natural instruments could not play all the of the chromatic scale until valves were invented in the early 19th century and added to the instruments so you could instantly switch to different lengths of tubing . So composers were limited in the kind of melodic lines they could write for the natural instruments , so playing the cello suites on the natural horn of Bach's day would have been out of the question .
But horn players starting with the latter half of the 18th century had a technique of closing off the bell with the palm of the right hand to cheat nature and play pitches outside the natural harmonic series .
But htis changed the timbre of the horn greatly . It' wasn't until the 19th century that composers specifically called for stopped notes at times for a coloristic effect .


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Instruments are neutral: there is no such thing as a 'classical music instrument"

There are hosts of associations with one kind of musical style as linked to a particular instrument + the style of playing that instrument. "Jazz Trumpet," for example... the trumpet existing long before "jazz.'

I find it more than distasteful, and greatly distorted, to hear, say, Monteverdi done with jazz inflections... I would not object at all if a Jazz player / band _took_ a Monteverdi piece and used it as the basis for a piece, just as Jazz takes a stock show tune or lounge ballade and _reworks_ it into _something else._

It is the 'pretty much intact but I'm going to put a spin on the stylistic delivery' stuff which annoys the hell out of me - sounds like a bad pastiche vs. a good piece.

As to coloristic effects, again, if they seem to have a purpose, and feel very much part of the piece, then I'm all for'em. Some composers use them willy-nilly, just for effect, and I find that weak.


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## Marisol (May 25, 2013)

PetrB said:


> I find it more than distasteful, and greatly distorted, to hear, say, Monteverdi done with jazz inflections...


Monteverdi was one of the first who introduced the walking bass! 
I love Christina Pluhar's l'Arpeggiata doing good old Monti:






Perhaps we can get it banned by papal decree.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Marisol said:


> Monteverdi was one of the first who introduced the walking bass!
> I love Christina Pluhar's l'Arpeggiata doing good old Monti:
> 
> 
> ...


This sort of thing (seen / heard it) always strikes me as a pathetic attempt to show how the old music is "hip" -- it is also very square -- not really jazz -- from some intensely fine classical players. It ends up sounding like parody / travesty vs. anything of real interest.

Leave the Pope out of it: what would be left for me to revile?


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## mtmailey (Oct 21, 2011)

I think the electric stuff like guitars do not sound great with a orchestra,i prefer acoustic instruments in an orchestra.Because they have a natural sound.


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