Minimalism

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.

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.

Originally Posted by Daniel

...
12387 502 239872356 3847 378 34736429 38 747 477. 3847 378!! 87 3847 18 9843 734 71 38734 9 8 8378347.)

12398 7283 09127 63 30938743 873 634643 63463 3847 198271983 387 10238?

Good job... now half the population is going to be speaking in numbers, and the other half like cavemen....

Ug, me no like numbertalk....


ROFLMAO!!!

Originally Posted by SSC

About Boulez, uh. I don't know why he gets so much shit, nor Glass really. Come on. Might as well start bashing everyone from Cage to Vivaldi and Palestrina.

Like you said, there's nothing new under the sun.....

Originally Posted by SSC

Oh wow people have different tastes in music? IMPOSSIBLE! It MUST be the composers that suck instead!!

LOL!!!

Originally Posted by gms5287

Boulez is an internationally acclaimed composer AND conductor, and he's in the history/theory books. What have you done?

I know this question wasn't asked of me, but I have the answer.

I've been listening.

The fact that people are listening is what put Boulez in the history books.

Originally Posted by firsty_ferret

No disrespect or anything, but hasn't this thread gone slightly off the point for which it was intended?

Oh no. It's just secondary thematic development.... Haha.

Originally Posted by Gardener

Can we please stop discussing Boulez? Otherwise I feel constantly torn between not wishing to help derail this thread (since clearly Boulez has nothing to do with minimalism), and wanting to defend Boulez against "cheap" accusations.

In answer:

Originally Posted by gms5287

Boulez is an internationally acclaimed composer AND conductor, and he's in the history/theory books.

I think he can defend himself.

Originally Posted by Mike

Again, that's all my personal opinion, and I embrace the fact that there are people out there with differing views. But I draw the line at embracing philosophies of exclusivity: that is, I have trouble sympathising with viewpoints which dictate that my own be invalidated. It's a two way thing, after all.

Bam!

Originally Posted by SSC

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.

And possibly because you want to enjoy hearing your music too?? After all, aren't you a part of your own audience, and a part that has a major effect on the music that gets written?
Personally I write stuff that I like, and if other people like it too, great. If not, oh well, at least I've satisfied myself.

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!)

I did mean to refer to the average ("classical") concert-going public, not the demographic which uses MTV as musical nourishment. I do think there's a gap between at least some contemporary aesthetics and what audiences like to hear - just look at all the Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms etc. occupying concert programmes nowadays. But people do also seem to be catching up in many ways, which is exciting. Realistically, I think it's unreasonable to expect "real-time" appreciation of the avant-garde. After all, that's why it's called the avant-garde.

And yes, I'd certainly write differently for my musically literate friends in contrast to what I'd produce for a commercial venture. I think that underlines my point about effective musical communication. It can help you earn money, and it can help you connect with people. I find both of these prospects rewarding.

P.S. rwgriffith, were you bamming me in a good way or a bad way?

In a good way!
You validate your viewpoint by having it. It is, after all, a perspective. No one perspective is 'better' than another. More advantageous in certain situations perhaps, but not 'better'.
In fact, unless you've seen something from every possible perspective, you aren't getting the whole picture. Something very few of us are able to do.

Originally Posted by Gardener

Can we please stop discussing Boulez? Otherwise I feel constantly torn between not wishing to help derail this thread (since clearly Boulez has nothing to do with minimalism), and wanting to defend Boulez against "cheap" accusations.

Yeah, let's stop discussing Boulez in this thread. For a moment, I felt the urge to passionately defend Boulez against those ignorant insults (such as the ones uttered by that Daniel guy), but then I thought they were too foolish to be taken seriously.

Originally Posted by Mike

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.

To me, reaching out to the audience and writing something I am truly satisfied with as a composer are two irreconcilable things. Maybe things were different in former times when the general public was still slightly more musically educated. But nowadays it seems that, to quote Carter once again "most audiences are in same position I was in when I was a little boy." Even worse, the only musical language most audiences nowadays will understand is the language of pop music (which, as you may know, I see as the enemy of classical music and as a form of intellectually vacuous and regressive culture, but that's a different discussion). As composers of art music, we strive to communicate deep and profound things, yet this only seems possible through a musical vocabulary that is unfamiliar and unintelligible to most listeners (and certainly not through the vocabulary of pop music). However, I take comfort in the fact that the works which, in the end, turned out to be important landmarks in the history of western art music were very often works which were not understood by audiences in their time and which considered reaching out to the audience as a secondary matter.

Originally Posted by Mike

I did mean to refer to the average ("classical") concert-going public, not the demographic which uses MTV as musical nourishment. I do think there's a gap between at least some contemporary aesthetics and what audiences like to hear - just look at all the Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms etc. occupying concert programmes nowadays. But people do also seem to be catching up in many ways, which is exciting. Realistically, I think it's unreasonable to expect "real-time" appreciation of the avant-garde. After all, that's why it's called the avant-garde.

And yes, I'd certainly write differently for my musically literate friends in contrast to what I'd produce for a commercial venture. I think that underlines my point about effective musical communication. It can help you earn money, and it can help you connect with people. I find both of these prospects rewarding.

I suspect a lot of people underestimate the "average" audience's ability to appreciate music that is more demanding of them.
Probably this attitude is brought about through people like Carter et al who treat the audience as a "necessary annoyance".
I've seen rapturous receptions given to new works, and this from the "ordinary" concert audience.
There is a fine line between blowing your audience off and at least TRYING to communicate with them.

I notice that many film-score afficionados are not particularly "musically trained", and yet, they are fully capable of appreciating the less lyrical moments of many of the great filmscores of the past years. For example, Close Encounters of the Third Kind has a great many fans, yet it is one of those John Williams scores with the least "accessible" music.

I see nothing wrong with bridging gaps.

I do see something wrong with blowing off the audience and treating them like imbeciles.

To me, reaching out to the audience and writing something I am truly satisfied with as a composer are two irreconcilable things. Maybe things were different in former times when the general public was still slightly more musically educated. But nowadays it seems that, to quote Carter once again "most audiences are in same position I was in when I was a little boy."

This may not be Carter's (or your) implication, but the above strikes me as demeaningly portraying dissenting audiences as childlike. Such an attitude is exactly what will continue to separate much of musical academia from the mainstream. If, as with the case of a child, audiences need educating (which they probably do), you can either sit them down with a text book and/or lecture them, or you can introduce them to aspects of avant-garde thinking via a distorted flavour of a pre-existing medium which they understand.

Of course, this principle needn't restrict itself to music. I know one person who took a liking to ambient music after watching Donnie Darko. And I reckon that the Qatsi trilogy might find some as a door into minimalism. With something subjective, personal and conditionable like music, stubborn dogmatic statements rarely yield results, regardless of their rational veracity.

As composers of art music, we strive to communicate deep and profound things, yet this only seems possible through a musical vocabulary that is unfamiliar and unintelligible to most listeners (and certainly not through the vocabulary of pop music). However, I take comfort in the fact that the works which, in the end, turned out to be important landmarks in the history of western art music were very often works which were not understood by audiences in their time and which considered reaching out to the audience as a secondary matter.

If a piece of music really is unintelligible to the listener, then the communicative attempt has surely failed. Forget about any deep and profound intent - if it is lost upon the listener, it is a wasted exercise, no?

The only recourse then becomes to pass the buck onto future generations who, it is relied upon, may decide that there is in fact a message contained within the music; something to relate to, something to grab hold of, something that renders it of interest, significance etc. As you rightly point out, this has sometimes been the case. However, the fact that it rests quite heavily on a simple assumption renders it quite precarious in my view - sort of a flirtation with wishful thinking.

And to whom are we referring with regards to eventual acceptance, anyway? Musicologists and academics, or audiences? If it is to be a historical reprisal of a little-known (or even unknown) gem, it's the musicologists who will do the digging. And we all know that musicologists and audiences often don't relate to one another very well. In a very real sense, especially taking into account the financial realities of orchestras, record labels etc. and music's status as a social meme, it seems to me a safer bet to at least partially chase after the audience when seeking out longevity, or verifiable acceptance.

I suspect a lot of people underestimate the "average" audience's ability to appreciate music that is more demanding of them.
Probably this attitude is brought about through people like Carter et al who treat the audience as a "necessary annoyance".
I've seen rapturous receptions given to new works, and this from the "ordinary" concert audience.
There is a fine line between blowing your audience off and at least TRYING to communicate with them.

I agree, and I think exploiting this "grey area" is a very viable strategy, which as far as I can tell you also seem to believe.

Originally Posted by QcCowboy

Blah Blah Blah (Some good points, though! Well the one about film music is good.)

...

I do see something wrong with blowing off the audience and treating them like imbeciles.

[Warning: Oh shit I'm going to rant, hold on to your hats~]

But that is FUN! ... To me!

I think the audience as a necessary annoyance is really a nice way to say it in my case. Honestly, I don't really give a shit if anyone understands anything I write or likes it at all, because if I did I wouldn't write half the things I do because I'd be afraid of their reactions and flying beer bottles.

Though it's nice getting good comments, I'm really stubborn when it comes to suggestions. Opinions are one thing, but I have a thing against people who think they should be writing your music instead of, well, yourself.

Which sums up a lot of the "in the know (GROAN)" crowd really. So, honestly I'd rather have an audience who has no idea what they're listening to and hate it because the last thing they liked was a the new linkin park video than a bunch of people trying to describe shit in made-up terminology I don't begin to understand, passing it off as "constructive critique!" If you want to comment, the least you can do is be honest and not buy into the black-wearing artsy-fartsy lie. If your gut hates something, or likes something (or doesn't care), it's FINE if you don't have a 9000 word essay on hand to explain why. Really. It's fine.

Also, the Quatsi Trilogy is FANTASTIC. The music? FANTASTIC. I didn't get into minimalism because of it (almost did though), sure, but it makes me appreciate Philip Glass that much more. His symphonies aren't bad either. I can't disqualify him if he can pull off such a fucking amazing piece of work in my opinion.

Another thing, there's no "wasted" experiences. So long as there's a REACTION then it's not wasted (even indifference can be a reaction?) Sure, the "Message" wouldn't have gone through, but you know what? Unless you print the message out in all languages on your program notes and distribute it on P2P under ParisXXXSECRETVIDEO it's not going to get as much attention as the actual music. The actual music is (generally!) pretty terrible at giving any sort of message, even if the lyrics are right there telling you what the message is (if the music has lyrics!) Look at all the gazillion interpretations of famous Operas, rock songs, ETC ETC.

Hell, I've said it before, but I'd rather people HATE my music and "Not get it" than people nodding pretending to understand what I did and "get it" when there was nothing to GET! I've purposely written things (that have gone into actual concerts with actual audience!) which have NO REAL MEANING WHAT SO EVER and I wrote them on the idea that they sounded pretty.

And then comes some avant-gardistic asshat who claims he "got it" and blah blah blah, finding whatever merits in what otherwise was just a "HAHA that sounds awesome LOL!" musical ejaculation! Likewise, it's like when I write complex 6 voice fugues and people look at me like I have a goddamn doctorate in occultism/magic because I copied a style well enough to poop it out effortlessly.

But just as well, I don't really mean to say anything with it a lot of times and I write it because it sounds "Pretty!" to me. SO I can't really say that copy-pasting lots of cow mooing noises together and adding randomly generated reverb effects and then intermittently adding an old sitcom laugh track on top has LESS or MORE inherent meaning than a 19th century style sonata for piano. People are just conditioned to think one thing, I like them to be angry/scared/confused/? when they're forced to deal with shit they simply can't fit into their little "oh lol this goes here!" mental-organization-system-box-thing.

Needless to say, for best results, mix cow noises with sonata form.

More rambling: Any old imbecile like me can copy styles and churn them out with some creativity and impress people enough in the academic world that you get your pieces played despite never really studying music anywhere ever before then (LOL!) So really, it's nothing to be impressed about nor is it anything to be proud of though it's highly amusing.

From my rather painful experience with the academic world in what seems to be half of Europe, South America and apparently Korea (except everyone in Korea seems to have 100 diplomas/degrees from all over the world for everything from fixing the toilet to applied thermodynamics) for some reason, you can bullshit all you want and you can tack on whatever nonsense meaning to your pieces or anyone else's pieces if it's "cool" enough to people who are old and occupy important places in academic hierarchy!

In the face of so much bullshit what can really be done? If you cater to an audience you're a sell out non-creative asspringle, if you do super-avant-garde(tm) music people will think you're either retarded or you're a modernist pretentious cakefest, if not they'll actually be modernist pretentious cakefests themselves!

IF you cut it somewhere in between people call you mediocre or that you haven't "found your voice!" I think it's only after you've gone through the whole suicide-inducing roller-coaster of measuring audience reception that you learn to stop giving a shit altogether and enjoy when someone doesn't walk away from something you did unaffected by it in some way.

Rant over!

[If this reads weird, it's because I've been watching too many of these: The Escapist : Zero Punctuation so imagine all of what I wrote, but spoken by this guy with those hilarious little illustrations he does while rapid-fires hilarious stuff. From his mouth.]

To each his own, then.
I appreciate those who truly feel that they require no recognition whatsoever from any sort of audience.

And a brief note to SSC:
the "blah blah blah" comment?
NOT nice. you're implying that what I said had no value.

Please edit your post to show a tiny bit more respect.

Originally Posted by QcCowboy

To each his own, then.
I appreciate those who truly feel that they require no recognition whatsoever from any sort of audience.

And a brief note to SSC:
the "blah blah blah" comment?
NOT nice. you're implying that what I said had no value.

Please edit your post to show a tiny bit more respect.

The hell I will, I did say you made a good point about the movie thing, I hadn't thought about it before. I DID clearly read what you wrote.

Don't assume I mean anything bad, disrespectful, etc, with the "blah blah blah" comment, because I don't. Might I add, that if I wanted to imply that what you say has no value, I'd actually say it outright. I don't like beating around the bush nor am I too good with subtleties. While I have a drastically (fistfight worthy) different opinions than yours (music and otherwise), and all that jazz, I think I can do better than something like that if I really wanted to say your opinion has no value. PLUS, I'd know better than to drag it into a thread that has ALREADY derailed spectacularly.