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Yes, I suppose so. It isn't always very easy for me, though. I'm not always able to distinguish easily between something that's really "wrong" and something that is just different from the way I would do it; both send up red flags to my ears, and then I need to try to sort it out. Sometimes I have the focus, sometimes I don't. [/b]
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You would think that the more
mature ears should, in theory, have better perspective. By mature, I mean simply having logged more hours listening. But then, how do we stop everything from melding into one understanding? I mean, listening to a broad range of music AND being critical within the bounds of a specific genre seems like an oxymoron of sorts - at least at times to me. Harmonically speaking, how do you really know where Mozart's ears leave off and Beethoven's start? Undoubtedly, musicologists who specialize in a particular period have this all neatly codified. I don't know if you ever had a chance to listen to my
Mozthoven thread, but it's an example of a somewhat botched attempt by me to address this issue.
Other times it makes perfect sense. For instance, I know when I'm doing a folky gig not to throw in any Dom7#9b13 chords. Same rule applies when writing for a small choral ensemble. But then these are more stylistic differences than period differences - and I live in the period.
The problem is that composers here aren’t necessarily writing in a specific style. Chris’s work is just cannon; he didn’t announce that it was a canon in the classical style. He could have written a jazz canon, or a canon with a contemporary harmonic palette. So how do we know what to criticize? The answer is, we know because we think we know what Chris is trying to do. Chris could just as easily have disagreed in line-item fashion about every one of my criticisms. He could easily respond with things like, “I love hanging diminished ninth intervals in my writing” - And who’s to say he’s wrong? In fact, he did respond with some things that he’s intentionally keeping despite my critique. I say, more power to him! He’s now an informed breaker of rules. He likes the way he broke the rules. That he sees some of what I don’t fully appreciate as his stylistic voice and is not afraid to stand up for it is important in the long run. But from my perspective - optimally, he should be able to identify why they sounded awkward to
me in the first place - i.e. understand the "rule" or whatever it is that i’m trying to identify.
Regarding your comment, don’t feel cagy about offering specific advice. Take the plunge; you'll learn in the process. I have. I use to preface a lot of my critiques with an apology or a disclaimer about how I might not really be qualified to be doing this, and I still do sometimes. But the bottom line is, you and I are imparting the way our (hopefully more) experienced ears are hearing things, and there are a lot of young composers here who are not able to articulate that, even if they have the ears. They end up having to say, “Wow, that was really nice; The fast part made me feel really happy.”, or “Dude, it just sounded bad at measure 35, maybe if you snazzed it up a bit there…” On the one hand, I think it is a great thing that this site provides young composers with a place where they can share their work with each other, see each other grow, and cheer each other on, but (I think) many of them are starving for specific constructive criticism. So until folks here start to suggest that my participation isn't welcome, and until I stop getting some satisfaction myself from participating, I'll be hanging around. Certainly, I’ve been admonished, corrected, yelled at, and disagreed with here. It all goes with the territory. We all take our lumps and hopefully learn a few things from them, right?
I thought about PMing you with this but what the heck; I figured I’d keep the thread hi-jacked and do Chris the favor of keeping it at the top.
Jul 8 2006, 3:50 AM
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