Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike
I believe it's important also to communicate with audiences in a language they will understand. Unless people in Europe or the US have spent some time immersed in musical academia, chances are they will possess a bias towards Western tonality, rhythm, timbre and all the rest of it. For better or for worst, this is the "language" people understand, and it's hardly surprising: they are Westerners who have grown up in a Western society surrounded by a dominant musical aesthetic. Sure, you want to innovate too, but if you depart significantly from a comprehensible reference point, you run the risk of confusing your listener. Think of it as the difference between inventing a new word and inventing a new grammatical construction, or even language.
Of course, some people (gianluca, Carter to name but two) are not concerned with how the audience will react. Again, I don't personally subscribe to that. I derive as much satisfaction from reaching out to my audience (whoever they may be) as I do creating something I am personally satisfied with.
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Don't underestimate an audience's ability to make sense out of anything you present them with, even if it's not related to the more popular or mainstream aesthetics. I'm more for supporting all sorts of aesthetics, since the only reason the popular ones are, well, popular, is because they've been around longer. Invariably, it depends what kind of audience you have. If it's regular folk, sure, you can bet on copying tradition as a device to get expectable reactions. But... is that really all there is?
I know that I like to take chances when I listen to music, go to concerts, etc. I listen to things I'm aware I may not like, but I listen to them anyways. To me it's part of the fun being surprised when something I thought was nonsense ends up having an effect. So, I try to write for people like me, who aren't afraid to go to a concert and just live the experience rather than hold prejudices for no reason.
I don't really feel the need to write music for people that think music is a masturbatory aid, that is to say, they'll just listen to what they know and like and never venture out of it because listening to what they know and like is all they want. And sadly, that's a whole huge lot of people I've just described, including a major percentage (?) of audiences everywhere. Academia or not, why bother writing for people who think the best music ever has already been written?
So, there are plenty of reasons to ignore audience altogether, since chances are the people that really believe in "the experience of music" are far too few to make any difference (yet!) and what you end up with is a lot of people who have uncomfortable bias AND an attitude which doesn't favor anything beyond their limited knowledge, with no possibility to grow. (Though I did say not to underestimate any audience...which is really lots of wishful thinking. And, I like to give people the benefit of doubt rather than assume everyone in an audience is a jerk!)
Really, it's as simple as, like a friend says "We make money, not art!" If that's the case? Then well, everything changes then, don't it? Once you expect something back like money, you'll probably want to use whatever "works." Whole different type of composition process or creativity, that. One I'm not fond of, honestly.
Anyways, even if the thread has derailed, most of what could be said about minimalism was said before! I mean, it's not like it derailed on the second post or anything. So it's not so horrible.