relevant music

hello,

i have a theory of relevant music. the amount of it stays the same.

in each century to come only around 5 minutes will be added. the time of epical works is over. if you cant say it in 300 seconds you failed.

Clearly 5 minutes of old music then get irrelevant.

next question is: how much relevant music is out there?

Days, weeks? See the problem?

I say only 3 hours of music at maximum (of various composers) as of today can be considered relevant.

To my believe zero seconds are from pre 20th century. And zero seconds are from youngcomposers.com.

Think the same?

Eftos

No.

!?

In the nicest possible way you would've seemed to have posted a few sentences of utter bollocks.

Care to clarify?

In the nicest possible way you would've seemed to have posted a few sentences of utter bollocks.

Care to clarify?

The literal translation of my "!?" above, indeed. Thanks!

Congratulations, sir.

I think no music is relevant.

Ever.

Except mine.

This dude also has some other gems, check out:

http://www.youngcomposers.com/forum/messiaen-quartet-end-time-15610.html#post244026

:>

I must not understand the word 'relevant'.

Because right now I have no idea how music can be 'irrelevant'.

Irrelvant to what? Why does it matter?

Just stop!

This dude also has some other gems, check out:

http://www.youngcomposers.com/forum/messiaen-quartet-end-time-15610.html#post244026

:>

OH! And let us not forget: http://www.youngcomposers.com/forum/last-fms-flaw-15861.html

...epical...failed.

That's all I got from that post....one giant epical failed.

Uhm...

I like bananas.

I like bananas.

In all seriousness, who doesn't?

Also in all seriousness; rhubarb is amazing. Youtube it.

In all seriousness, who doesn't?

Me.

I kind of see what you're getting at, that there's a ton of crappy music out there, and little has any necessity to be learned at this point.

I disagree though. I think we're coming extremely close to the essential break to the Composition stage of production, which, predicting the post-Civilization stage of the West, can have no value set since there is no code and no simulacrum to the place of sacrifice.

So, soon, either no music will be "relevant" or all...

Relevant to what?

I've never understood this obsession with "relevance" in music.

Meaningful? Appropriate? I'm not sure exactly what the OP means, either.

*gets all jazzically profound on you*

Chill out guys! All music is relevant, man! Just because some jive-turkey doesn't dig it, don't make it any less hip to you or me...you dig, daddy-o?!

i don't know. i think he came with simple fantasy hypothesis, which had couple of things parameters involved - the amount (of relevant music) and the time (in which this amount is spread). so it's pretty normal, that the amount of relevant music is yielded in the time. so, the man comes with the idea, that the more music there is, the less music shares the property of being relevant, or that the property of relevancy gets disseminated through the actual pieces of music. the more pieces, the less relevant they become. it's inflation.

now the actual problem is what is 'relevant'?

well, if it is being meaningful to bigger population of listeners, then certainly we are in the times of musical irrelevancy.

objection could go like this - is being meaningful easily assigned due to attendances and sales - do we really think that going to concert or buying a record shows the degree of person's love for the music? maybe it's simply social (habit, peer reaction, mass media opinion, whatever else which is not strictly musical), which would certainly raise the question if any music was ever relevant, except for personal involvement. even if tons of people listen to mozart, that doesn't say nothing about its meaning as a music.

so if relevancy is this social category, i think i like the fact that relevancy decreases, and we are left eye to eye with music. that's where we must decide, what to make of things, which are not overdressed with history.

p.s. i've seen much more trivial things in here being discussed in a manner of deccision between life and death.

i mean, even j.l. borges had some ideas how amount of good thoughts and wisdom is always the same, while the time and its way of being spread among individuals varies.

Here's what's interesting in all of this... (Oh noes... tonality again?!?!?! What the hell?!!?!) Relax. It's an example I'd just like to apply to this, so relax. I'm genuinely trying to NOT piss people off. Honestly.

So, in a lesson at some point in my academic life, I composed a work that loosely incorporated functional, tonal harmony. I didn't JUST use functional harmony. I had some OTHER interesting harmonies. This particular piece just happened to have a functional harmony.

It was "not contemporary." That was the argument against it. Functional harmony in contemporary music is not acceptable. What the hell does that mean anyway?!?! Does the word "contemporary" imply some form of relevance? Does the functional element make the particular passage not relevant? Of course not! Yet, there was a concern in this instance that the functional use of harmony was, in a word, "out-dated" or I might even go so far as to say "taboo" within contemporary music.

So, without getting into the whole tonal argument again, I think this issue of "relevance" comes back to what is considered "proper" composition today as opposed to what is literally relevant. If that helps expand on this, then I'll just go that extra step.

If any music can be claimed to be any more or less "relevant," "contemporary," or otherwise "acceptable" today, then that's where I think the OP should be directed. I don't subscribe to any of the "relevance" crap. It's a lot of hype for one method over another when both are justifiably worthwhile.

There, that wasn't too bad, was it?

I think the major problem with op's argument is that music, in order to be "relevant" has to be considered in context. The tristan chord, just by itself, is nothing special - it's important because of how it's used and how it functions with everything that preceded and proceeded it. Even the most absolutely brilliant melody is useless if it's just presented once and then the "piece" concludes - it has to be presented in some sort of context, no matter how conventional or innovative. What would a listener do with something like that? Just put it on repeat? Then the effect would be a ridiculously boring minimalist effect

If one had to choose only 5 minutes of music to qualify as "relevant" to them, it would be more of an index of tiny snippets from hundreds, perhaps thousands of pieces. The actual 5 minutes, if played continuously, would be a useless blob of sound, and would not serve any purpose except to reference the pieces from which they were sampled.... and then, in the process of referencing the context, you would inevitably exceed the five minute quota. So, reducing everything to such a short period is absolutely useless and serves no purpose whatsoever.

That would actually be pretty nuts... a narrative of music in five minutes...

Naxos+WiretapPro+Logic=derivative work city!