Finding your voice

I hate it when composers aren't pretentious ...well, not really. But you get my point (I hope).

pretentious - Wiktionary of course who wouldn't want that? Just a hop skip and a jump between being pretentious and having a facade.

Anyway, for example, a piece could be mathematically constructed, and interesting, but it is less about music than math.

That hasn't got anything with... anything.... o_0

Music does not need some hidden meaning some underlying story to be good. Hell, threnody's 'story' was added after it was written, does that make it rubbish all of a sudden? A lot of composers did that.

The example with the Threnody is very good. In fact, the piece was intended as some kind of comment/reply towards Cage's 4'33", so I guess many people, just by hearing this, will discard Penderecki's piece as "non-art" (those who consider all of Cage's output to be non-art anyway). Well, unfortunately, many people just by listening to the piece will say that it's not art anyway

Originally Posted by jujimufu

What about the music of Debussy? He didn't try to "express" anything..

....The hell? Since when?

"I confess that I am no longer thinking in musical terms, or at least not much, even though I believe with all my heart that Music remains for all time the finest means of expression we have." - Claude Debussy

"Have I succeeded in expressing all that I felt? It is for others to decide. Is the faith which my music expresses orthodox? I do not know; but I can say that it is my own, expressed in all sincerity." - Claude Debussy

"Music expresses the motion of the waters, the play of curves described by changing breezes." - Claude Debussy

Suite bergamasque - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Children's Corner - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

*thoroughly owns Juji*

EDIT: I'd argue you with about Satie as well since I do find his music "expressive" but it's hard to say what the hell he was trying to do with his music. I think he just enjoyed doing things for the sake of being weird...such is the French culture.

Music is consciously calling attention to sounds. Usually it refers to the organized creation of sounds, often with intent, but not always. 4'33 is always the example I pull out when I discuss the definition of music. Silence itself is not music. However, Cage specifically directed a performer to NOT play any sounds, and because it is a performance setting, the audience is aware of other sounds that are being created, regardless of whether they are being consciously created. One cannot dismiss something as non-music because of the timbres being used, as percussion has proven that anything can be used as an instrument. One cannot dismiss something as non-music because of the 'lack of intent' behind it, because if I am correct, much of Bach and Mozart - s music was written for a patron, not totally out of artistic expression. One cannot dismiss something as non-music because it doesn't sound good, because that's just plain wrong.

Do you people not realize that the majority of music that is or has been written is Absolute music, or functional music (film scores, ballets, etc). Stop stroking it to Verdi and step out of your box once in a while "Mr. Romantic"