Music's Limits?

By this logic, nothing anyone's ever done has made new music. Since notes were already being written and played by the 6th century BC, even when people found new ways of composing, playing, and generally just making sounds that were perceived as music, nothing was "new" since it already had pitch, rhythm, dynamics and texture.

That's absurd.

EVERYBODY QUIT, NOTHING YOU CAN DO IS ORIGINAL ANYMORE, GO HOME.

Are you PURPOSELY trying to act moronic?

I'm talking about NEW music WITHIN the framework of pitch, rhythm, dynamics, and texture - it's been exhausted. I'm NOT talking about inventing new concepts BEYOND pitch, rhythm, dynamics, and texture.

Care to try again? :whistling:

I feel technology CAN make new music - it did - Music Concrete, Stockhausen, Mumma, hell, even Rock Music...

And Corbin, please cite some examples? Or even names to look up? Or are you more comfortable dismissing the topic entirely?

Some good points from Nikolas, Funkamaboo, even Matthew.

Why do you need inovation?

Yah! Nikolas and Zetetic struck home with this one! No one needs innovation - and personally, I'd rather hear a powerful and beautiful melody over the most advanced and innovative concoction every time... BUT, that's beside the point, and not for here.

;)

For the reactable - I think its a cute, even very interesting, toy. I don't see any practical way to make it as effective an instrument

I can foresee a wildly useful instrument - and a whole new nomenclature and composition system for this thing...the possibilities are endless, and at your fingertips. It's fascinating...and I see your point, but think 'this kind of thing' is still in it's infancy and has plenty more mileage to go before it's fully developed as a musical tool. However, the fat is in the fire!!

The joining of arts is an interesting point. I feel that that refers more to performance, however, despite the instantaneous composition. I fear that it might be mostly packaging, but that's just been my limited experience.

True enough.

Technology can NOT make new "music".

Are you sure? I think it can, and might...and hopefully will. Also, it's likely that someone will come up with something NEW...don't discount the human creativity.

...it won't be anything that can't already be done with a computer program and patches

Really? It won't... :hmmm: Can you also tell me who will win the 2012 Superbowl?

I'm only being half facetious...you can't possibly tell me where technology will take us....

Care to try again?

;)

I'll sum up my thoughts on this rather briefly:

The thing about a revolution is...

That you don't see it coming.

:>

Guess we'll just have to wait and see. :whistling:

Because right now is an era of revivalism. :sleeping:

Because right now is an era of revivalism. :sleeping:

Jokes are good, but your sense of humor is weird. :>

Show me music that, as of 2008, is revolutionary. :whistling:

Weird sense of humor, I say~

Besides, if you can't see the revolution happening right in front of your very eyes there's not much I can do, is there?

Are you PURPOSELY trying to act moronic?

I'm talking about NEW music WITHIN the framework of pitch, rhythm, dynamics, and texture - it's been exhausted. I'm NOT talking about inventing new concepts BEYOND pitch, rhythm, dynamics, and texture.

You sir, are an idiot.

p.s. Jesus hates you.

We're like one person.

I love it.

Creepy post is creepy.

You sir, are an idiot.

p.s. Jesus hates you.

Your post was idiotic. How else would you expect me to respond?

It's kind of sad that you guys are so sure of your perspective, and yet you don't even bother to try to validate your argument. The saddest thing is that you just expect me to take your word for it. :whistling:

I'm quite well-aware of the music scene right now, and in fact I'd wager that I've heard more of all the different music out there than any of you have. If you guys can't see the revivalism going on, then that's your own naivety.

I'm not sure why this should have to boil down to a game of name-calling and character defamation, rather than just discussing the issue itself. For people who are so self-righteous and self-confident, you guys are doing a lousy job of making your point. :sleeping:

I'm quite well-aware of the music scene right now, and in fact I'd wager that I've heard more of all the different music out there than any of you have. If you guys can't see the revivalism going on, then that's your own naivety.

Oh, well, that changes everything! I didn't know you were such an authority on the subject. Sorry.

:>

Your post was idiotic. How else would you expect me to respond?

It's kind of sad that you guys are so sure of your perspective, and yet you don't even bother to try to validate your argument. The saddest thing is that you just expect me to take your word for it. :whistling:

I'm quite well-aware of the music scene right now, and in fact I'd wager that I've heard more of all the different music out there than any of you have. If you guys can't see the revivalism going on, then that's your own naivety.

I'm not sure why this should have to boil down to a game of name-calling and character defamation, rather than just discussing the issue itself. For people who are so self-righteous and self-confident, you guys are doing a lousy job of making your point. :sleeping:

Well, see. Your posts were not only idiotic, but made no use of common sense, something you need to actually, uh, convince people that you're right.

And so, Jesus hates you best describes what I'm trying to say.

Well, see. Your posts were not only idiotic, but made no use of common sense, something you need to actually, uh, convince people that you're right.

And so, Jesus hates you best describes what I'm trying to say.

Oh? You mean he was just asserting his superior knowledge of the subject by asking us to just simply believe what he says is objectively true (And thus his opinion is well founded??)

UNPOSSIBLE!

Wait wasn't he asking us NOT to do that?

Me = Confused.

Sorry if this has been mentioned, I didn't read every reply. However, in the U.S., we tend to lump music into the category of "classical" and "jazz." "Jazz" wasn't invented until 1920...This is really a big deal since so many thought that "tonal" music had been through it's paces. Then, all of a suddent there is this entirely new music. This style has also been put through its paces of course, but this example should give you some hope...

Now instead of looking at it as there is no where to go, I believe that composers are creating things in totally new styles still. Computer music has new boundaries every year as technology advances.

More importantly, having so much history of music advances and different styles is really a privelage as we have so much to take from. In actuality, composers have been recycling ideas for ages and adapting them to create their own styles.If your aim is to just be "new" and not "you," how will you ever create anything you are proud of and that is not strictly academic.

JMO

-Ben

It's kind of sad that you guys are so sure of your perspective, and yet you don't even bother to try to validate your argument. The saddest thing is that you just expect me to take your word for it. :whistling:

Then, ignore them and perhaps use your posts more wisely and address someone who does bother to validate his argument.

Instead of perpetuating this stream of nonsense, let's try and have an actual *gasp* discussion...

I get serious for a moment (PS, when I talk at "YOU" I mean matthew, not rob.)

Just to be technical, his argument has no valid reply because it's not a valid argument.

Any proper discussion would be along the lines of "Of all the current thousands of tendencies what could possibly be remembered hundreds of years from now as being "the thing" of our current time?"

Any other points like "There's nothing revolutionary" bla bla bla are just utter scraggy since you have to define what revolutionary is because everyone has a different concept of it. Also, music is and has always been a gradual process. There's no such thing as SUPER SUDDEN BREAKTHROUGH!

I mean, it doesn't take much knowledge of music history to see how any major shift in trends and etc are GRADUAL. Even then, a lot of the major music history turning points like Mozart or Haydn's vienna classic thing are ISOLATED from the actual tendencies of the time they lived in! Beethoven and Brahms, Schubert and Cage, etc etc, all didn't just poof out of nowhere with "SURPRISE, REVOLUTION!"

So knowing all this, why would ANYONE ask for something that has NEVER been the case?

As for the revivalism thing? That's laughable. Not only for the above reasons, but because there IS no loving "trend" in today's musical world. It's everything, everywhere, going on at the same time!

That's the revolution!

No style, no trend, just a mess of people trying to shout louder than everyone else about what is "the next new thing!"

INCLUDING YOU.

You think it's revivalism? Cool. The guy next to me with a PhD in musicology and the social worker next door, the girl riding her bike down the street, etc all disagree.

Nevermind that you won't impress anyone by claiming you've listened to more diverse music, or for a longer time, or whatever other claims. That's just silly.

If you want to make a real point in this discussion, how about you explain what you think is a musical "revolution" and actually take into consideration music history while you're at it. Don't just conjure stupid labels that don't mean anything and only you understand. What the gently caress is "revivalism" anyways? Is that like neoclassicism? Or postmodernism?

Or what? Last I heard, musicology debates were centered around trying to define if postmodernism was still around or it was over since everything can fall under that umbrella. Plus, it's extremely hard to talk on a global scale. While Serialism may have been a big thing in Europe in the 50s, are you sure that's also the case for Japan? South America? ETC?

I seriously doubt you know. Prove me wrong, show me the VAST amount of knowledge you MUST have if you're labeling an ENTIRE ERA GLOBALLY like you've been doing! Show me you know exactly what's going on in every culture, and everything in between.

Put your money where your mouth is, or shut up.

Otherwise, I may as well forgive all this idiocy if a nice proper discussion can arise like the examples I mentioned. Though I still think the entire thread is doomed from the start as it's a dead-end discussion of endless redefinition.

OK now I stop being serious. :>

Any proper discussion would be along the lines of "Of all the current thousands of tendencies what could possibly be remembered hundreds of years from now as being "the thing" of our current time?"

Or who is working in certain fields that is revolutionary. As far as I know, there is no Steven Hawking of the music world right now - no one superstar face who has at least symbolized, if not actually produced, new and original thought in his field for the mass public. There is no Stockhausen, no Schoenberg, no one who is taking the reins. I'm curious about who is on the REAL cutting edge - who is not still considering the modernism from a previous era to be truly modern.

Any other points like "There's nothing revolutionary" bla bla bla are just utter scraggy since you have to define what revolutionary is because everyone has a different concept of it. Also, music is and has always been a gradual process. There's no such thing as SUPER SUDDEN BREAKTHROUGH!

I mean, it doesn't take much knowledge of music history to see how any major shift in trends and etc are GRADUAL. Even then, a lot of the major music history turning points like Mozart or Haydn's vienna classic thing are ISOLATED from the actual tendencies of the time they lived in! Beethoven and Brahms, Schubert and Cage, etc etc, all didn't just poof out of nowhere with "SURPRISE, REVOLUTION!"

Of course, but sort of like rock critics debating when grunge started, you have to pick an arbitrary time, like the death of beethoven, to say "ok, this is when a paradigmic shift has happened.

The definition I had in mind was a shift in the definition of acceptable music, coming from changes in what can be used to create Western Art, Popular, and even maybe Commercial Music, such as structure type, harmonic content, rhythm, tempo, just all of the analyzable aspects of music. The interesting thing is that there are porous borers between disciplines now; indian scales, melodies, rhythms, and the like are now acceptable as western music, for example.

I'm sure someone with a better library can correct me, but I feel that "organized sound" is not even the most general definition of music during say, the classical era. When western music started to effectively emulate other traditions, that was a major shift in what was possible; when atonality weaseled its way out from extreme chromaticism that increased the musical palette immensely; when chords could be unresolved with it still being "good," it allowed composers to avoid common forms; when the possibility of synthetic temperaments became available, that widened things significantly. Examples like these are easy to find all through history, and I think they're decent fits for the definition.

Not only for the above reasons, but because there IS no loving "trend" in today's musical world. It's everything, everywhere, going on at the same time!

That's the revolution!

No style, no trend, just a mess of people trying to shout louder than everyone else about what is "the next new thing!"

INCLUDING YOU.

I guess that's true, but WHO is making the music doesn't inherently change the music, divorcing the analysis from preference and demographic influence. The music can still be fundamentally the same. I'm not asking for the next "big thing," exactly.

It would be like a bunch of composers/academics/yahoos getting together in 1907 and talking about what schoenberg was doing. And again in 1917, then 1927, and discussing what Webern was doing, how Berg was changing the rules set down. Webern, i feel, opened things up by creating extremely short pieces (if my history is incorrect, the point stands for whoever was the first extremely short pieces in western art music). They have no idea how 2008 is going to respect Schoenberg, but they can still discuss his works and how they are or aren't doing something ingenious.

I can't imagine that people aren't trying to push sounds. I went to one day of the International Computer Music Conference (btw, Millard Puckette is a terrible lecturer) in 2007 - I saw mainly computer geeks doing kitschy things. Some of the pieces was really cool, but the actual composition components were based in previous styles, previous levels of definition of the question "What is Music?" The auto-improvisor would literally be based on music from different styles; and even if the systems were changed mid-piece, simultaneously had two systems running for different parts, or had no system and was wholly random, there would be precedents for that. They could even had made the computer run a complex algorithm to decide its personal style, but the end result may not fundamentally be any different from a less complex approach, not changing the music itself.

Being too lazy to read everything in this thread or even to respond to everything, I'll leave it at:

I praise God, Zeus, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster for the fact that there's no "Stephen Hawking of the music world". The guy already annoys me enough without talking about anything that directly concerns me :(

Oh, well, that changes everything! I didn't know you were such an authority on the subject. Sorry.

:>

I'm not going to pretend to be a professional musicologist, but your guys' outright dismissal of my perspective suggests you think I'm like an interior designer having a go at surgery. My music library hosts over 78 days' worth of music spanning approximately 3,233 years, 25 languages, 43 countries, and 56 different strands of musical tradition. I didn't make my statement without thinking about it first. :whistling:

Well, see. Your posts were not only idiotic, but made no use of common sense, something you need to actually, uh, convince people that you're right.

And so, Jesus hates you best describes what I'm trying to say.

I'll hand you one thing - you make such empty, baseless posts that it's impossible to intelligently and relevantly respond to them. Moving on...

Oh? You mean he was just asserting his superior knowledge of the subject by asking us to just simply believe what he says is objectively true (And thus his opinion is well founded??)

UNPOSSIBLE!

Wait wasn't he asking us NOT to do that?

Me = Confused.

My initial post (or one of the first ones) brought up numerous dual-concepts of music that were meant to stir specific discussion regarding specific musical styles and possibilities. It's not my fault you guys chose to ignore them because you're all so damn rhetorically lazy. :sleeping:

Then, ignore them and perhaps use your posts more wisely and address someone who does bother to validate his argument.

Instead of perpetuating this stream of nonsense, let's try and have an actual *gasp* discussion...

I shall:

I get serious for a moment (PS, when I talk at "YOU" I mean matthew, not rob.)

Just to be technical, his argument has no valid reply because it's not a valid argument.

Any proper discussion would be along the lines of "Of all the current thousands of tendencies what could possibly be remembered hundreds of years from now as being "the thing" of our current time?"

Any other points like "There's nothing revolutionary" bla bla bla are just utter scraggy since you have to define what revolutionary is because everyone has a different concept of it. Also, music is and has always been a gradual process. There's no such thing as SUPER SUDDEN BREAKTHROUGH!

I mean, it doesn't take much knowledge of music history to see how any major shift in trends and etc are GRADUAL. Even then, a lot of the major music history turning points like Mozart or Haydn's vienna classic thing are ISOLATED from the actual tendencies of the time they lived in! Beethoven and Brahms, Schubert and Cage, etc etc, all didn't just poof out of nowhere with "SURPRISE, REVOLUTION!"

So knowing all this, why would ANYONE ask for something that has NEVER been the case?

As for the revivalism thing? That's laughable. Not only for the above reasons, but because there IS no loving "trend" in today's musical world. It's everything, everywhere, going on at the same time!

That's the revolution!

No style, no trend, just a mess of people trying to shout louder than everyone else about what is "the next new thing!"

INCLUDING YOU.

You think it's revivalism? Cool. The guy next to me with a PhD in musicology and the social worker next door, the girl riding her bike down the street, etc all disagree.

Nevermind that you won't impress anyone by claiming you've listened to more diverse music, or for a longer time, or whatever other claims. That's just silly.

If you want to make a real point in this discussion, how about you explain what you think is a musical "revolution" and actually take into consideration music history while you're at it. Don't just conjure stupid labels that don't mean anything and only you understand. What the gently caress is "revivalism" anyways? Is that like neoclassicism? Or postmodernism?

Or what? Last I heard, musicology debates were centered around trying to define if postmodernism was still around or it was over since everything can fall under that umbrella. Plus, it's extremely hard to talk on a global scale. While Serialism may have been a big thing in Europe in the 50s, are you sure that's also the case for Japan? South America? ETC?

I seriously doubt you know. Prove me wrong, show me the VAST amount of knowledge you MUST have if you're labeling an ENTIRE ERA GLOBALLY like you've been doing! Show me you know exactly what's going on in every culture, and everything in between.

Put your money where your mouth is, or shut up.

Otherwise, I may as well forgive all this idiocy if a nice proper discussion can arise like the examples I mentioned. Though I still think the entire thread is doomed from the start as it's a dead-end discussion of endless redefinition.

OK now I stop being serious. :>

First off, I know that musical revolution is a gradual process. Your mind seems to automatically categorize those who don't agree with you as wholly stupid. Not everything is quite so black and white. -_-

Secondly, I know that music is currently everything, everywhere, going on at the same time. I never said it wasn't; my point is that this everything isn't substantially and *gradually* evolving into something new and unprecedented.

Now, the best way to deal with such an issue is through specifically evaluating numerous branches and strands of musical styles - one by one - so that speculation doesn't have to play such a big role here. Let's be thorough, shall we?

Blues: Well, we start off more or less with the country blues of the 20s and 30s, with folks like Mississippi John Hurt, Blind Willie Johnson, Skip James, and Robert Johnson. Eventually Elvis comes along and popularizes it in a rock n' roll fashion, as well as combining it with country sensibilities. In the folk revivalist period of the early 60s, country blues artists like Mississippi John Hurt and Skip James are rediscovered and repopularized, along with the concurrent blues strands of B.B. King, Albert King, Muddy Waters, Junior Wells, and John Lee slaw. Cream and Derek & The Dominos - via Clapton - take Robert Johnson as precedent and further electrify the blues genre with rock sensibilities, as do The Allman Brothers Band, ZZ Top, and Stevie Ray Vaughan. The Black Crowes worked with a harder-edged, Southern blues-rock, and Clapton continued old-fashioned blues both unplugged and electric with the likes of B.B. King, but since then? Well, Aerosmith returned to its bluesy roots with Honkin' on Bobo - but that's just it! Blues has been presented as a style of nostalgia, and not much that was actually *new* has happened within the genre since Vaughan.

Indian: Essentially, within the tradition of Indian classical music, you've got the Hindustani style headed in the 20th century by sarangi players such as Sultan Khan, santoor players such as Shiv Kumar Sharma, sarod players such as Amjad Ali Khan, sitarists such as Imrat Khan and Vilayat Khan, tabla players such as Alla Rakha and Zakir Hussain, and all great singers like Bhimsen Joshi, Gangubai Hangal, Kishori Amonkar, Pandit Jasraj, Ajoy Chakraborty, Shubha Mudgal, Ulhas Kashalkar and Amir Khan. Additionally, you've got the Carnatic style with singers such as M. Balamuralikrishna and violinists like L. Subramaniam. Problem is, many of these figures, as influential as they were, were very traditionalist and stuck within the raga melodies and tala rhythms of their predecessors, always adhering to the practices of drone accompaniment and melodic monophony. Ravi Shankar of course helped to popularize it in the West via fusions with pop-rock, but he still primarily stayed within the comfortable limits of tradition. Now, you've got guys like Cheb i Sabbah who adapted the styles to cater to Western ears, and the guys of Tabla Beat Science who refreshingly fused the Hindustani style with electronic undertones, and of course A.R. Rahman and his awesome love for experimenting with all sorts of variants between traditional Indian styles and other styles of Western origin, but that's just it - it's only evolved by manner of fusion, and fusion can only take the parent genre so far. Essentially, it seems to be up to the other genres' transformation for a likewise fusion-born transformation of Indian music.

Hip hop: So you've got the old school, which, let's be honest, was really just playing around with a whole new sound with seemingly tons of possibilities. Well, in the late 80s, you've got the likes of Run-D.M.C. and DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince popularizing a smooth rap style, and simultaneously you've got the Beastie Boys carrying over punk rock sensibilities into the hip hop arena, and eventually we're hit with the hardcore hip hop style of Public Enemy, later to be taken to another nearly satirized level by the likes of the Wu-Tang Clan. A Tribe Called Quest admirably popularize a jazzier form of hip hop, and before you know it, Dr. Dre comes in with his G-funk beats that spurred the popularity of both his prodigies Snoop Dogg and Eminem (and subsequently D12). Eventually comes the "second Golden Age" of hip hop, with the laid back and often jazz/Afro-instrumentation styles of Common and Nas, though you've still got the likes of Jeru The Damaja maintaining the darker, grittier beats of yesteryear. Tupac's of course got his multi-faceted approach of grittier hardcore styles, softer soul/jazz tunes, and the occasional Dre-influenced bounce rhythms. Before you know it, you've got The Roots making hip hop music worthy of an actual band, and you've got Dan the Automator making acid rap under the guieses of Handsome Boy Modeling School, Deltron 3030, and Dr. Octagon (the first of which, among other things, managed to work classical music effectively into the style of hip hop, and the second of which managed to make sci-fi hip hop a reality). Throughout this all, you've got another strand of hip hop aligning itself with R&B via the MTV machine, and as bubble-gum pop dies out, N.E.R.D eventually comes along and solidifies the MTV-friendly hard-yet-slick approach to hip hop, and this is of course raped ad nauseum. Danger Mouse has a go at making a hip hop album out of the white album, and it's a pretty remarkable testament to translucence of the barriers of genre, and Blackalicious delivers a style of hip hop that's accessible yet artistically merited. But where do you go from here? Well, alternative rap hasn't musically done much in the past couple of years, aside from the occasional fusions with country and ethnic folk music, and of course the MTV branches of hip hop haven't exactly delved into much new musical territory since, say, crunk. Yeah, depressing.

Goddamn! This is taking a hell of a long time.

Country: From country blues, which we talked about earlier, eventually comes a "whiter" incarnation ala the Million Dollar Quartet (Elvis Presley/Jerry Lee Lewis/Carl Perkins/Johnny Cash). Bob Dylan plays around with country (as well as blues), but his influence spans to the folk and counterculture domains. You've got Johnny Cash doing what's pretty much country at its purest, and tangentially you've got the likes of The Band infusing country sensibilities with a folkier approach. The Eagles take country and make it their own with their earlier work like Desperado, but Hotel California they're already trying to diminish their country roots. Along comes Wilco in the mid-90s with two potent alternative country albums, but they, too, eventually give way to alternative rock. While you've still got some folks like Rosanne Cash who are playing "classic" country, now (and for the past too-many years) you've got this pop-country genre that's dominating all the stations with a redundant-as-hell form of country, with some ballsier figures like Brandi Carlile adapting country sensibilities to a pop-rock format. All in all, however, nothing "new" has really happened to country since the pop-country style was born with the likes of Shania Twain.

Electronica: Goldie is the first real figure worthy of mention here. His Timeless was aptly named, as it was the first drum 'n' bass record (and really, electronic as well) to *really* be taken seriously. But not to be forgotten was Leftfield, whose Leftism was a masterpiece of progressive house. Daft Punk really made house a household name (didn't intend for that to come off as a pun, but meh) with Homework, and concurrently you've got DJ Shadow crossing a fine line between electronica and hip hop. Britain plays a big role in all of this with trip hop, fueled by groups such as Morcheeba, Massive Attack, and Propellerheads. Meanwhile Juno Reactor's already working on a fusion between world music and electronica (specifically, goa trance) that of course will become the redundant obsession of many a New Ager. On the other side of electronica you've got Air, who make electronica a worthy addition to the iPod of the Starbucks generation with strands of synthpop and trip hop. The Dust Brothers give breakbeat a good gritty go in their only original material in the form of a hellishly post-modern soundtrack, and Eiffel 65 approach electronica from completely the opposite direction with their brand of eurodance. And while Thievery Corporation masters a combination of dub, trip hop, and downtempo, Infected Mushroom debuts with a psychedelic trance style that eventually caves in to more traditionally-rock tendencies. Lovage gives electronica a hip hop makeover, and Bluetech continues to hone the downtempo sound. Bonobo does for electronica what Blackalicious did for hip hop, and, perhaps most significantly, The Thrillseekers (really just Steve Helstrip) defines the club sound with his trance compilations of "nighttime" music that really just harken to already-done styles, parallel to, say, the trance remixes commissioned by Ayumi Hamasaki ever since the turn of the century. In other words, nothing new in the past couple of years!

Jazz: Jelly Roll Morton or not, jazz eventually becomes the original American popular music with big band swing, which introduced the musical world to figures like Artie Shaw, Duke Ellington, Glenn Miller, Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, and so many more. Out of France comes an interesty "gypsy" variation of jazz ala jazz manouche, with Django Reinhardt being its most enduring figure. Miles Davis is obviously a prominent figure throughout jazz's inner-20th-century evolution (talk about understatement), and Birth of the Cool notably introduces cool jazz (duh). Jazz gets a huge birthright celebration with jazz recordings of Gershwin's Porgy and Bess (as opposed to renditions with operatic vocals), most notably by Ella Fitzgerald/Louis Armstrong and Miles Davis in the late 50s (and later Cleo Laine/Ray Charles ala Frank DeVol and Oscar Peterson/Joe Pass in '76). Nonetheless, hard bop is finally "mastered" by the likes of John Coltrane's Blue Train, Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers' Moanin', and Cannonball Adderly & co's Somethin' Else in the late 50s. In the context of output by figures such as Theolonious Monk, Ellington, and Charles Mingus, the Dave Brubeck Quartet scores big for cool jazz with Time Out, and Davis brings jazz into a modal form with Kind of Blue; Coltrane soon enough has his own go with modal jazz via My Favorite Things. Later, while Coltrance gave closure to his hard bop days and entrance to his eventual free jazz style with A Love Supreme, Wayne Shorter gave hard bop another go (though arguably also post-bop) while adapting Davis' approach of modal jazz with Speak No Evil in '65. Always the pioneer, Davis ends the 60s with an electric approach (and not to mention implementation of sonata form) to jazz via In A Silent Way that's taken to an even bolder, rock-influenced level with the subsequent scallopes Brew. One enthusiast of this new jazz fusion approach was Jon McLaughlin, whose Mahavishnu Orchestra continued to pioneer this style. Unfortunately, before you know it, you've got smooth jazz becoming a commercially-viable staple of radio, with some beautiful work being put out by the likes of Keiko Matsui. B

You just posted a long-donkey wall of text describing a bunch of genres. That really helps none.

And

Now, the best way to deal with such an issue is through specifically evaluating numerous branches and strands of musical styles - one by one - so that speculation doesn't have to play such a big role here.

Uh, this WHOLE THREAD is based on speculation. In order to even answer the question you have to speculate. "Is all that there is to be done in music done? I don't think anything new is coming", or "No, I don't think it is, something might happen later, we just don't know yet," or "Why worry about it? Does it even matter? I don't think it does now and I don't think it will in the future."

That's all speculation.

I'll hand you one thing - you make such empty, baseless posts that it's impossible to intelligently and relevantly respond to them. Moving on...

Your mind seems to automatically categorize those who don't agree with you as wholly stupid. Not everything is quite so black and white. -_-

THE IRONY!!

and I see a very clear tendency towards music that's already been done in the past, either by intentional artistic purposes of revivalism, intentional personal purposes of nostalgia, evasive facilitations of fusion (of which are themselves becoming worn-out and revivalist), and unintentional means of creative incompetency.

Now if you don't mind, it's 4 AM, and I'm hoping I "put my money where my mouth is", whatever that means. :sleeping:

I still think your sense of humor is really really weird. :>

The proof of your knowledge I was expecting was more or less "I know every single person in the planet and thus I know exactly what is going on, objectively."

So it was an impossible challenge. Too bad you kind of fell for it and wasted your time on this.

Anyways, I'm done. This is a dead end argument of endless redefinition. If you want to think nothing "revolutionary" is happening or can happen, that's up to you. I don't personally give a scraggy since I can just take whatever your definition of revolution is and do something to fit your definition. Effectively killing your entire argument, yep.

It's not that I treat you like an idiot. No. You do that great on your own and certainly you don't need my help.

--Anyways--

As for ferkun's reply, I'm feeling sort of lazy so I won't bother to correct a lot of what you've said in terms of accuracy and what not. Instead, I'll simply present this:

Just going by the lack of standards today of what music is, can there be anything that is REALLY "revolutionary" in the same sense as atonality or whatever were? If today it's entirely OK to make music for garbage truck and dog whistle, or throwing chairs across rooms, or what not, that exhausts the potential altogether of anything you can do physically.

This is also why this discussion makes no sense. You can't look at the past to expect to see what a revolution may look like in the present. Times have changed greatly and that's exactly the kind of gradual revolution/evolution I'm talking about.

I'm not talking about popularity or statistics, I'm talking about the actual state of the musical world. Sure, that a lot of people still write sonatas ala mozart or rock ala beatles means jack scraggy if it's "acceptable" for me to write a concert piece for bulldozer and football.

It defeats the entire point and clearly it overlooks the much bigger shift in the perception of music altogether.

And let's not pretend every musician is equally informed or knowledgeable of the time they live in or music history. It's this ignorance that causes a lot of "me too!" music, but that has always been the case since it's easier and generally the only option when there are no means to study any further than what is right there in front of them.

But to say that this has any real value in terms of the implications of modern music is absurd.

Another reason why this thread bothers me is precisely because it just glosses over all the groundwork for really destroying any concept of music as anyone can possibly define it. In fact, if anything the gradual shift has made it practically impossible to expect anything specific and instead it's made it bluntly obvious that everything is possible and will happen at any given time, anywhere.

Nevermind I'm not a fan of talking about "revolutions" since the very concept ignores the gradual process of everything. Atonality didn't come out of nowhere. It was a slow and gradual conclusion that had been developing for many years. It's silly to see something like that as "revolutionary" if you know anything about what came before.

In any case, the entire deal is, no matter how you define "revolutionary", it doesn't apply today where everything is possible.

Which is why I was jokingly saying that the thing about revolutions is that nobody sees them coming. If they saw a revolution coming, it wouldn't be much of a revolution and simply an evolution or a gradual and predictable shift... Much like it's always been.

Anyways, I'm leaving it at that. Continue if you must, but be aware that it's a pointless dead-end argument. There's no conclusion since the premise is impossible to deal with realistically.

Wow.

I'm certainly not reading all that.

*wonders why his posts get ignored in lieu of this hostile badgering*

Seriously - I don't know what you were trying to prove with that turd of a post there Matthew...

I believe I said this was a dead-end argument three pages back in post 24. :sleeping:

Anyways it's clear you guys are just going to call me an idiot for disagreeing with you, so I'm done. It's not a fair debate if one side sees it as a matter of logical discussion and the other sees it as a matter of personal attacks. :whistling:

And just for the record, the purpose of my genre summaries was to show that, within each genre, the innovation rate has been approaching nil. I don't know if you noticed a trend with the endings of all the summaries. :whistling: