How can I move on from Bach?

exactly. Its my opinion. I've said that enough. When I said: "just chords" I meant that it was strictly a variation on a theme and that it lacked emotion for me. I am not going to get into an argument/discussion because it is my opinion and I am entitled to that, if nothing else.

I think we were referring to the .. uhh, "short and focus on the rythmic aspect of music" part of your statement.

Originally Posted by maelstromtempest

Bach was a great composer, no doubt, and it isn't wrong to exclusively listen to him. But seriously, the majority of his pieces are short and focus on the rythmic aspect of music. In my opinion, this style doesn't... carry me in my emotions. Mozart and Haydn lack emotional harmonies as well. So, I think you should try listening to some Dvorak, Tchaikovsky, and Brahms. This will give you a good idea of the importance of chords. Then, work your way back to Beethoven. I feel that his music is the perfect balance between harmonious and rythmic complexity.

*rhythmic

Emotion emotion emotion emotion emotion blahblahblahblah

What is an "emotional harmony", can you please tell me that? What about a harmony is inherently emotional? Isn't the lack of emotion an emotion anyway? Listen, I'm pretty sure you say the word "emotion" at least 7 times in each of your posts and it really isn't helping your credibility, it's the real reason someone here might have a problem with your posts, they just haven't admitted it. I can understand if you find some of the gestures and ideas of Romantic composers attractive, some of it is quite good, but seriously drop the whole "OH IT'S SO EMOTIONAL " schlock. To be frank, it's an immature way to approach music, any music. What, do you think Beethoven just sat at his piano sobbing for hours as he transcribed the sound of his tears hitting the ground and that became the Pastorale symphony? No, he was still very concerned about technique, form, sound, orchestration, motivic transformations and coherence, all the things every composer of EVERY era was and has been concerned about. Now the thing with the Romantic era is that you find a wider array of "emotions", styles, images, what have you in a given movement which you don't find in the Baroque and Classical, but this obviously doesn't make any of this music not worth giving any time. Most "emotion" in music is created by the performers anyway, not the composer. I've heard some dim performances on the Fifth, that's just life. Honestly though, I know you're young so you'll get over it soon (I was there once haha), but there is more to music than the bombast. "Oh man, big loud chords and drums and oh my god this is so amazing and EMOTIONAL OH MY GOD", and then you hear the Goldberg Variations and you think, "Oh this is boring". I get where you're coming from, you're going to get over it. Because seriously....give me Bach or John Adams any day over.....Dvorak/Tchaikovsky (shudders). Stravinsky even said that his music doesn't truly express emotion, not in the abstract sense anyway. But aren't we all emotionally moved in some way by Stravinsky's music? His music is certainly not a failure.

For the record, just because *you* don't like a piece of music does not mean that that particular music lacks effect for others that hear it. Therefore, a piece can't "lack emotion", you just don't like it. People really need to practice more objectivity on this board.

By the way, if you're ever a conductor, please don't be the conductor that programs nothing but Tchaik and has to have flagrant and uncontrolled gestures just because THE MUSIC MOVES YOU SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MUCH. Those conductors never go anywhere in life. They're trying to be Lenny Bernstein, but the thing they forget is that Lenny Bernstein is....Lenny Bernstein. He still had a lot of control and maturity anyway, otherwise he wouldn't have been conducting the NY Phil. Same with Michael Tilson Thomas, lots of energy and personality in his conducting, but out of control for the sake of "emotion", never.

Originally Posted by jujimufu

Books. There are loads of books about music after the 50's (Paul Griffiths' "Modern Music: The Avant-Garde after 1945" is a great introduction to the later 20th century music), the experimental music until the 70's (Michael Nyman's book "Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond", one of the best books on experimental music, focusing mainly on the american scene, but also on the european scene, with artists such as Cardew), contemporary music (David Toop's books, among others) and you can find loads of books on individual composers, and of course the endless articles on wikipedia. I realise it's a bit hard to have access to CDs and audio samples/scores of more contemporary composers, but you can definitely find loads of samples in websites such as bmic.co.uk and criticalnotice.co.uk (and the respective music information centres of other countries). You can always check iTunes and Amazon.com audio samples, before buying a CD, and you can find loads of CDs for a cheap price on ebay. For scores, you can preview scores at most of the music information centres and sheetmusicplus.com . Of course, becoming a member at a library with loads of music scores and CDs can also be very helpful.

You have to explore these things on your own, and you may shape your journey on exploring composers by asking people to suggest pieces to you, but their suggestions will mostly be based on what you already like and what they might think you'll like, so it's not as if someone could make a certain list of things to listen to for people who are "stuck on Bach" or something.

I haven't listened to much Reger, but what I've listened to so far is fun.

Throwing someone into the world of John Cage and Milton Babbitt is NOT going to help someone like 20th century-present music. Seriously. That whole era of post 1945 Avant-Garde is dead, and thankfully it lived a short life

Originally Posted by gms5287

*rhythmic

Emotion emotion emotion emotion emotion blahblahblahblah

What is an "emotional harmony", can you please tell me that? What about a harmony is inherently emotional? Isn't the lack of emotion an emotion anyway? Listen, I'm pretty sure you say the word "emotion" at least 7 times in each of your posts, and it really isn't helping your credibility, it's the real reason someone here might have a problem with your posts, they just haven't admitted it. I can understand if you find some of the gestures and ideas of the Romantic composers attractive, some of it is quite good, but seriously drop the "OH IT'S SO EMOTIONAL " schlock. It is frankly an immature way to approach music, any music. What, do you think Beethoven just sat his piano sobbing and he transcribed the sound of his tears hitting the ground into the Pastorale symphony? No, he still was very concerned about technique, and form, and sound, all the things every composer of EVERY era was concerned about. Now the thing with the Romantic era is that you find a wider array of "emotions", styles, images, what have you in a given movement which you don't find in the Baroque and Classical, but this obviously doesn't make any of this music not worth giving any time. Most "emotion" is music is created by the performers anyway, not the composer. I've heard some dim performances on the Fifth, that's just life. Honestly though, I know you're young so you'll get over it soon (I was there once haha), but there is more to music than the bombast. "Oh man, big loud chords and drums and oh my god this is so amazing and EMOTIONAL OH MY GOD", and then you hear the Goldberg Variations and you think, "Oh this is boring". I get where you're coming from, you're going to get over it. Because seriously....give me Bach or John Adams any day over.....Dvorak/Tchaikovsky (shudders).

For the record, just because *you* don't like a piece of music does not mean that that particular music lacks effect for others that hear it. Therefore, a piece can't "lack emotion", you just don't like it. People really need to practice more objectivity on this board.

Omg I love you.

Originally Posted by Corbin The Violist

Omg I love you.

Thanks, I just can't stand that sometimes. People that mentality are the same people that think John Williams is the modern day Beethoven. Seriously, someone told me that yesterday, A MUSIC MAJOR. Ludwig Van is probably still vomiting in his grave.


PS: Nothing against John Williams of course but.......come on!

but that's his gift to you. Imagine him saying "Thank God someone heard me in 2008." When he died in 1750-ish, there were less than one billion people on the planet and we were already fighting over resources and religion, and audiences sat quiet and united when they heard his work. There are now 10 billion plus people here, and art remains the only answer to the question "what is the meaning of life?"

You now have the distinct advantage of being alive and not having to reinvent Bach's wheel...so consider being the Johnny Appleseed of his seed. Bach probably had someone he wished he could have been as well (and probably someone with good hair).

Give at least one listen to New Order's 'Elegia', or the opening bars of 'Sub-Culture', or the follow up pieces 'Crystal' and 'Regret'. They are at best an orchestral blueprint, but they punch toward the heart which beats 'smart' music any day. This is where the struggle to survive the human condition is being fought during the time you can affect it. 'We' used to cater to mad Popes or Kings or Lords of the Land...same was true for Shakespeare and F. Scott Fitzgerald as well.

Contemporary music is now the property of people who text message in to 'American Idle', and it's a blessing that we can can feed the starved. Write something brave and loud and play it on the streetcorner.

Your'e not feeling sorrow, you're feeling urgency, so time to go to work.

TPBennan.

Originally Posted by kickingandscreaming

but that's his gift to you. Imagine him saying "Thank God someone heard me in 2008." When he died in 1750-ish, there were less than one billion people on the planet and we were already fighting over resources and religion, and audiences sat quiet and united when they heard his work. There are now 10 billion plus people here, and art remains the only answer to the question "what is the meaning of life?"

You now have the distinct advantage of being alive and not having to reinvent Bach's wheel...so consider being the Johnny Appleseed of his seed. Bach probably had someone he wished he could have been as well (and probably someone with good hair).

Give at least one listen to New Order's 'Elegia', or the opening bars of 'Sub-Culture', or the follow up pieces 'Crystal' and 'Regret'. They are at best an orchestral blueprint, but they punch toward the heart which beats 'smart' music any day. This is where the struggle to survive the human condition is being fought during the time you can affect it. 'We' used to cater to mad Popes or Kings or Lords of the Land...same was true for Shakespeare and F. Scott Fitzgerald as well.

Contemporary music is now the property of people who text message in to 'American Idle', and it's a blessing that we can can feed the starved. Write something brave and loud and play it on the streetcorner.

Your'e not feeling sorrow, you're feeling urgency, so time to go to work.

TPBennan.

First of all, I don't know where you went to school, but there are only about 6 billion-ish people on the planet right now, not over 10 billion, that's ridiculous. It's going to get to that number in a couple decades, but right now, no.

Originally Posted by gms5287

Throwing someone into the world of John Cage and Milton Babbitt is NOT going to help someone like 20th century-present music. Seriously. That whole era of post 1945 Avant-Garde is dead, and thankfully it lived a short life

Says you~

If it's dead, then so is tonal harmony, counterpoint, ETC ETC ETC. No music style dies, it just falls out of fashion. No composition technique dies, it just gets less use.

More over, my problem with this guy's post was the Rhythmic Bach thing, like I pointed out. I don't care what he considers emotional, I could as well consider a Toyota more emotional than Mozart's sonatas. That doesn't mean anything so I'm not even going there.

Either way, again with rating people on imaginary scales. Why the shit is John Williams worse or better than Beethoven? What kind of objective parameters are we using here? Oh, none? I thought so. If you hated the thing with this guy's passion for Tchaikovsky based on whatever parameters you thought silly, I'd like to hear YOUR argument as to why Williams is worse than Beethoven, since apparently you think the comparison is ridiculous.

Well, then, mister GMS, why do composers write music. Do they write music because they WANT to write counterpoint. Do they write music because they WANT to have an oboe and clarinet playing some random notes? no, they write because they want to express, and like I have said a MILLION times, this is my friggin opinion. Not yours. Mine. I myself choose what crap I like and I choose what crap I don't like. My little quote about Mozart and Haydn was my opinion. Seriously. I think that their music is just fluffy fluff, and that is my opinion. Of course all music is good and composers are for the majority incomparable, but does that mean that my opinion is wrong? No!

Mabye you were just thrown off by the word emotion. When I said emotion, I meant meaning. NOW REALLY, this is MY OPINION. Keyword = opinion. It is my PERSONAL belief that Bach's music isn't AS deep and meaningful as that of the Romantic Composers.

I know for a fact that every composer has tried to infuse a certain level of meaning in their pieces, but seriously, with such short works ( >20 min is what I consider not short) how can you build up such meaning?

I have heard much more meaningful pieces than what Bach has wrote, but his music is still good to listen to.

That's my side of the discussion.

p.s. Frankly, that post was my opinion. I don't care about objectivity when I SPECIFICALLY say that it is my opinion. Who the hell has to believe me anyway? Like you said, I'm young, but it is MY opinion.

And yes, I said opinion probably 20+ times in this post