What's the point/value of musical imitation?

Juji and I got in a wonderful, lively discussion on this topic today. Here’s the gist so you can comment:

- The basic assertion he made (as I understood it) was that any particular compositional style only remains “artistic” (to use his adjective; I think he meant expressive, perhaps, or a valuable contribution to musical thought, etc.) in the time period in which it emerges.

- To quote him: “I am just saying, I wouldn't consider a piece an artistic composition if it was written in the style of someone else/another era…simply because that era was significant in the development of music and had artistic value because it happened….Re-inventing the wheel has little importance in the development of technology, even if your wheel is a bit more personalized than the first wheel, if the wheel has already been invented [what’s the point?—I’m assuming he meant.].”

- Here’s my response (and I’m far from concrete on this). Perhaps imitating a past style (even thoroughly—with minimal personal idiom—to the point that someone would mistake your piece for a missing work of Bach’s or something) has SOME value or purpose that makes it true musical expression, not just an exercise in mimickry. In other words, IF one could immerse himself in the “style of Bach/Brahms” to the point that he writes new ideas of his own in virtually the same language, wouldn’t this be meaningful expression?


Interesting thoughts! So, here’s the question to respond to:

What’s the value/benefit/purpose (if any) in actively seeking to imitate (for the sake of argument, perhaps I’ll specify CLOSELY imitate; we all know that every composer builds on the past to some degree) other composers/compositional styles?
TO SAY IT DIFFERENTLY:
What status does such imitation hold or how should it be viewed: menial exercise…Inferior expression…Potential masterful communication, etc?

Knock yourselves out...and be gracious/open to ideas!
Brooks

Originally Posted by bpopw750

What’s the value/benefit/purpose (if any) in actively seeking to imitate (for the sake of argument, perhaps I’ll specify CLOSELY imitate; we all know that every composer builds on the past to some degree) other composers/compositional styles?
TO SAY IT DIFFERENTLY:
What status does such imitation hold or how should it be viewed: menial exercise…Inferior expression…Potential masterful communication, etc?

Knock yourselves out...and be gracious/open to ideas!
Brooks

To learn. If you learn something from copying, that's all that matters. Who the hell cares about "artistic merit" of music? Inferior expression?

I figure that a person when they have something to say, if they find that the language they want to say it in is Palestrina style counterpoint, then so be it. But that's very different from someone who doesn't know more than that and writes only in what they know, rather than searching out for other methods and styles, etc etc, and THEN picking what they like and WANT to do.

It's not about merit, better or worse, it's about learning and developing a personal style. It's a search and there's nothing wrong with this at all. It's only a problem if the person refuses to go beyond what they already know and instead just writes in what they learned and are satisfied with that.

If that makes them happy sure, but it'd be much better to know what there is, and then pick things out of actual preference, rather than ignorance or lack of experience.

It's difficult to assess whether, in the creative process, the artist creates anything that is truly 'new'. Within the contextual surroundings of the period, one is often confined to pertaining to a paradigm, or reacting to it (reaction often implying just as much involvement with the paradigm, just in the opposite direction). True, with enough artistic integrity, and enough thought, something truly new can occur, but often this occurence is outside of the control of the artist. Therefore, it is perhaps the only path for the artist to utilise and combine extant forms. One cannot create a truly new form on the spur of the moment. Pure imitation then, in the blandest sense, is the easiest way to get to grips with technique, and to begin to understand how you, personally, interpret established forms. If one has knowledge of this understanding, one's compositional constructions are more valid, more lucid, and perhaps better aesthetically. In striving for the new, the composer must learn the best way to recombine the old, and apply their personality in the best way, and imitation as a student is the best way to approach this goal.

L.

Trying to make your style completely unique is impossible. There is so much that has already happened that you are bound to copy some composers style. I think of the eras of music to be different mindsets regarding music (that is, after all, why they are split up into different eras). For example, Barouqe music is very technical and graceful, but lacks great depth. The early classical era is very playful and emotive while staying in the structural bounds. The late classical era (consisting of beethoven only) is very deep and majestic, while still constrained under previous musical ides. The romantic era is very broad and emotional, with the late romantic starting to break free from structure. etc... etc... there has been so much progress in our western classical music that all you have to do is pick one! It all depends on your state of mind though...

I hope I answered the question correctly...

Ah, so you made it a thread after all That's better, as people can actually see what we've been talking about. Now, here are a few replies to the comments so far:

To learn. If you learn something from copying, that's all that matters. Who the hell cares about "artistic merit" of music? Inferior expression?

Yes, I never said you shouldn't do it. I myself have written compositions in the style of other composers to learn, to learn about counterpoint, to learn about fugues, to learn about orchestration, but always to learn. And this is what Schoenberg mentions in his book "Fundamentals of Composition"; he says that the amateur composer recognises this tendency to learn and considers his output "academic" rather than "artistic".

Trying to make your style completely unique is impossible.

Give me one composer that sounds like Varese and give me one composer that sounds like Stockhausen. Although there is little space for total originality these days (you *are* using notes, like people have been using for hundreds of years anyway, and even if you want to be more original than that, it was done by microtonal composers (who went up to 1/8th of a tone), then by composers such as Stockhausen (who explored all the possible frequencies generated by a synthesizer within a specific bandwidth), then not-writing music was done by Cage, and inventing new scales and new instruments was done by Harry Partch, then mixing of styles was done by Schnittke, so there isn't much to do, is there? ), it doesn't mean it's impossible.

For example, Baroque music is very technical and graceful, but lacks great depth.

In my opinion this is a very superficial comment and I'll explain below. Have you listened to any of Vivaldi's choral works? Or even works before the Baroque era, works of the Renaissance, by Orlando di Lasso or Monteverdi? They have great depth in terms of emotion, if that's what you mean. Classical era is not playful, not if you listen to pieces such as Mozart's fantasias for piano, his 2nd movement from the 23rd piano concerto or his Requiem, among other works. Or Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, among a LOT of Beethoven works that are not "playful and emotive". The late classical era also consisted of Schubert, and other composers, and not all of their output is deep and majestic. It is true that the romantic era is much more "sentimental" than the other eras, just in that the composers were trying to convey emotion through their music, as a reaction to the industrial age and the "non-emotionality" that it resembled (that's true for all other Arts, not just music).

A more proper comment would be that in the Baroque and Renaissance music the harmony was created through the individual lines that were written (so the harmony was vertically implied by horizontal writing), while in the classical era harmony was mostly hozirontal (chords) and voice leading in terms of chord progressions (so it is characterised by its more homophonic writing than its hetero/poly-phonic, whihc is what mainly characterises the Baroque era - that is NOT to say that there weren't any fugues or canons written during the classical era, or that no pieces with apparent vertical harmonies were written in the Baroque era - I don't know about canons, I've never actually seen a canon in the classical era ). The romantic era is characterised by more chromaticism in the harmonies, thus creating more thick textures, with larger orchestras/ensembles and thus it looks "heavier" or "deeper" than classical music, and then the early 20th century can be described by a deviation from the usual forms and structures, as well as harmony (e.g. Debussy) and re-inventing the wheel in a different way (e.g. Schoenberg), and later 20th century at attempting to re-write the wheel (e.g. Boulez and Stockhausen) or uninvent the wheel (e.g. experimental composers). If that makes sense >_>

there has been so much progress in our western classical music that all you have to do is pick one!

Why pick one and not just do anything you want, without any restrictions whatsoever (which is basically what contemporary music is all about)? Why do you have to write in a style/genre that has existed already, instead of trying and explore the realm of music on your own, maybe influenced by other musicians, by other Arts, by sciences, by particular pieces, or by nothing at all (like John Cage's 4'33''). Music (and the other Arts as well) is irrelevant if you take it out of context, and that's as true for previous eras/genres/periods as it is for experimental, avant-garde, or more contemporary music.

I hope I answered the question correctly...

there are no correct or wrong answers to this subject =P


To LDunn's answer: Yes, we are all products of our influences and our past. This is what John Cage realised and tried to get away from his psychology, his unconscious, and his influences by leaving various indeterminate aspects in his compositions which were to be determined by the performers or by chance (using chance operations to determine the form of a piece). The avant-garde composers of the same era (50-60's) were trying to do the same, but in the completely opposite way: instead of not determinig some elements of the music, they tried to control every single element of their music so none of the elements was a product of their influences/past experiences etc. This lead to Stockhausen and Boulez and their idea of total serialism, to the point where Boulez, at the age of 23, said that "any musician who has not experienced — I do not say understood, but truly experienced — the necessity of dodecaphonic music is USELESS" (although I don't think Boulez would still support this opinion now). Xenakis used probability games and theories to write music so that he'd get away from his influences. I don't think composers are trying that hard to get away from their influences, I guess that the time after the war was a time where everyone was afraid of what happened in the past and wanted to get as far from it as possible (as the past had only lead them to the atrocities of the two world wars). Which is why people like Boulez and Stockhausen tried to re-invent music composition (and they kind of did), and why they admired Webern over Schoenberg, because although Schoenberg invented the dodecaphonic system, he kept writing in a very traditional way, while Webern was something completely new, he didn't sound like anything in the past.

But it is true that the past leads to the future. Without all of the past composers, music today would have never been as we know it, whether people tried to get away from the past or not. So it is up to you to decide how your music wants to sound like in a way that is yours and not someone elses.


Furthermore, there is the question of David Cope's EMI (Experiments in Musical Intelligence), which is basically a program he wrote back in the 80's to which you give an amount of works by a specific composer, and it analyses the pieces to identify that composer's "musical DNA" (the elements in his music that make us say "Oh, this is Bach" or "Oh, this is Beethoven") and it re-assembles those elements to create a new composition, in the style of that composer. Can the output of that computer be considered Art? If not, then what if a human wrote a piece in the style of Bach exactly as the computer had written it? Which one would or wouldn't be Art and why would there be a difference? And if you say that the computer won't create something human, I can tell you that EMI can produce better imitations of a Bach invention or chorale than many people around here. So, how does this relate to Art? If imitation is something a computer can do, then what's the point in humans doing this as well? And what about what Cope actually does, who cooperates with EMI to write music (i.e. he gives EMI music of his own, which the computer then analyses and re-writes, to give back new music in his own style, which he uses to continue/complement/write a piece of music), can his works be considered Artistic?

And then comes the other question: Is Arvo Part, for example, truly artistic? He is kind of re-inventing the wheel, but he does so in a kinda original and personalised way. Or are any of the neo-classicists really artistic? You can't deny that many of Stravinsky's works in his neo-classical period are very good, or claim that all of Poulenc's output is rubbish, can you?

To sum up, I'd like to end with by quoting SSC's reply:

It's only a problem if the person refuses to go beyond what they already know and instead just writes in what they learned and are satisfied with that.

If that makes them happy sure, but it'd be much better to know what there is, and then pick things out of actual preference, rather than ignorance or lack of experience.

I couldn't agree more



~jujimufu
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Here are some links that might give you some inspiration towards this matter:

The Ensemble Sospeso - Wolfgang Rihm : Wolfgang Rihm in conversation with kirk noreen and joshua cody
Stocktakings from an Apprenticeship - Google Book Search : "Stocktakings for an Apprenticeship", a collection of some essays by Boulez, check Chapter I ("In Search of a Musical Aesthetic")
Silence - Google Book Search :"Silence", a collection of some of Cage's writings and lectures (a very interesting book on the future of music, or music written when Cage was alive)
main : David Cope's page on his EMI
WNYC - Radiolab: Musical Language (April 21, 2006) : An interesting interview with David Cope that gives a slight insight to EMI (scroll down to "Musical DNA" and listen to that)

Originally Posted by jujimufu

Can the output of that computer be considered Art? If not, then what if a human wrote a piece in the style of Bach exactly as the computer had written it? Which one would or wouldn't be Art and why would there be a difference?

If a human wrote a piece in the style of Bach exactly as the computer had, that is, if he looked at all of Bach's pieces and treated each note as seperate event and then created a statistical table showing the probability of a certain note following another certain note and then being followed be a different note, then put all of these seperate events together according to preset rules and observed harmonies then no, it would not be art. It would be a algorithmic reproduction of a set of given information. Just like the computer's piece would not be art.

However, no human would ever do this. A human would listen to the pieces of Bach and note their texture and flow. There is no way for the human to exactly reproduce the Bach style because he does not have the exact data set that that requires. It is a much more qualitative kind of imitation. And thats what makes it artistic, that what makes it an expression of his self; the fact that no matter how much a composer tries to imitate another, there will always, ALWAYS be a fraction of himself in that composition.

To a large degree, I agree with jujimufu and Schoenberg (I have the book, too); almost everything is already tried. There is enough material to deduce what 'works' and what doesn't 'work' so well, but some people continue to insist, while others are ready to call music everything they see or hear... Which is another topic I'd like to not fall into. As for Boulez's statement, considering the fact that I could write software which generates serial music, then who is useless becomes questionable. Baroque music lacks depth? It depends on what you mean. I would say it has great intellectual depth.

Now, let me share what I think:

There are tons of different materials in nature, in their pure forms, and we shape them in order to create something that serves certain purposes, using planning, thinking, logic to fulfill our intentions. This "something" is in the imagination first. We experiment and explore what things and how have been created - you can see imitation everywhere, for example, in engineering. So with music. The thinking process involves understanding, so we need to better understand music and its inner connections in order to fulfill our intentions better and organize the process - we study harmony, counterpoint, form, orchestration and analyze. This process inevitably involves meeting with what was written in the past and the already known forms and conventions; that is, even if we don't want to consciously imitate the style of certain time or a composer, when we get to work, learn and explore, we kinda catch something from him. For example: "Hmm, I want to convey this or that in my music, I remember X does it in this way, so I can try to use it".
In the past, the harmonic system and working of music to a large degree have been intuited over time. Studying them leads to theories and seeing all this in action is when they are analyzed and applied to master the control over them. This is beneficial because one doesn't need to re-invent and re-research but can continue (faster) from the point which others have reached - evolution; one would have ready resources that can use for expression.
Of course, I think this doesn't mean that if you haven't imitated strictly certain composer in your writing (which could be boring sometimes), then you will be worse composer of lower quality and that you will be unable to compose your own ideas well. After all, you have your own ideas and whether you know the style of composer X or no, your ideas remain your ideas, unless they are very heavily influenced by composer X, which is... umm... little sad. If they aren't, then imitation is good.
One more thing: For example, if you compose for someone and he come to you and say: "I want it to sound like this", showing you Wagner's music, then you will have to listen more and more to Wagner and analyze his music deeper because you will have to imitate him, to imitate the way he created this emotion and message that your employer likes. If you've already done this, you can do your job faster (and probably better). I think Vangelis is one of those composers who like to (re)explore by themselves and simply follow the inspiration. As you can see, it costs more time.
Abstractions are leaky. As we discussed with a friend of mine (pianist), you study, study, study to see that actually everything is possible and allowed, so then you ask yourself, why you studied at all, but here is the answer: Because you will know what, how and why works, which makes a huge difference! And in the end, what really matters and is the root of all, is the very being of sound, it's properties and the way human beings hear and interpret them, for the sake of expression and communication. This is what I want to know and understand; this is what studying techniques and imitation can help you to know and understand; this is the ultimate goal.

To Fermion: you are talking about the compositional process that the computer undertakes to write a piece in the style of Bach. I am talking about the end product. Irrelevantly of how the other human person wrote that piece in the style of Bach, if he/she produced a piece which was identical to what the computer had written (via the same or other process, but we're not interested in that), would it be Art? What about the program itself? A program that can do that, isn't it Art itself? And the program basically does what a human person would do: it analyses the pieces, then it identifies the elements in the pieces that are common, and it reproduces them. That's exactly what a human would do, it's just that all those "statistical" and mechanical terms you've used are being performed in our minds, either unconsciously or we don't call them that. A person would do exactly the same, identify the "musical DNA" of a composer, then try to reproduce it. The process of doing so is quite irrelevant, as each person would probably do it in a similar (just like the program) but not identical way. And what if I did it in a statistical and very mathematical way like the computer, but I just told you I did it very intuitively? Would it be Art?

To Kamen: yes, to learn. But are those products of our learning period artistic? Even if they are (which can be claimed, to some degree), then they are not as artistic as the originals, or their artistry is only located in the elements in the music that are not imitative. Furthermore, what if someone is in that imitative period but does not acknowledge that, and he thinks he is composing real music while in fact he is only reproducing a composer's style or an era (or at least, attempting to reproduce that composer's style/era, as if this is due to his ignorance, he won't do it consciously and thus it won't be as close to the real thing as possible, which is what the "learning" kind of imitation is about)? Can his output be considered artistic?

Musical imitation: fat for the the fire.

My thoughts: The intent plays a big part. If the piece is intended as an exercise in nostalgia, so be it. If it's intended to be heard as a piece of art in and of itself, so be it. There's no problem with using tools of the past to create something new - it can still be creative and original.

When does something become an anachronism? Does using the same brush-strokes as Michaelangelo render a painting inartistic? How about a photographer using film? Sometimes, the techniques used can themselves be artistic. Why not with music as well? Baroque orchestras are alive and well - modern performances can't not be modern. The sound is still here...the music hasn't been completely relinquished to museums yet.

If I write a bebop head, is that inauthentic? Where do you draw the line at anachronistic music? Bach? Beethoven? Webern? Jelly Roll? Bird? Elvis? Lennon? Cobain? It's all a continuing lineage, one that has never stopped. I think that any and all stylistic elements can be present or omitted, and still produce creative and artistic results.

To: Jujimufu

The process in which a piece is made is not irrelevant. In fact, given that the end product is exactly the same, the process is the only thing that distinguishes the human product from the computer composition, and therefore is the only subjuct to debate.
A human cannot exactly duplicate a style because he does not have the exact "musical DNA" like the computer does. That's the difference; it's not EXACT. Because he does not have the exact "musical DNA" he has to "fill in the gaps" with his own "musical DNA". A musical Jurassic Park of sorts.
Since the composer has left a piece of himself in the composition, it is an expression of himself, and therefore a piece of art.
The computer was simply rearranging previous data according to preset rules, and therefore did not create a piece of art despite how similar it may be to the human's composition.

Originally posted by Jujimufu

What about the program itself? A program that can do that, isn't it Art itself?

I don't know, honestly. Although computer programs are not generally considered artistic, it is possible that the program itself is artistic because it was created by a human. But I would say it's unlikely. Anyway, it's late and I'm not willing to delve into a philisophical debate about the artistic aspects of computer programming. Not to mention it is widely off-topic.

Back on topic: Musical imitation is important to compostition because it gives the composer tools to express himself with. Even in the imitative learning stages of composition, the pieces created should be considered artistic for the reasons stated above. They always carry a piece of the composer in them blah blah blah....
Now, these pieces may not be what you would call "masterpieces", but that is simply a symptom of learning a new skill. The composer hopes that by imitating previous composers, he will be able to express himself and his new ideas as readily as they did. If he does not hope this, then he has missed the point of musical imitation and will probably be stuck within a single style and confined to that singular mode of expression. So, as SSC said it...

If that makes them happy sure, but it'd be much better to know what there is, and then pick things out of actual preference, rather than ignorance or lack of experience.