Howdy!

His Requiem is also quite impressive.

Modern music isn't just dissonance. It is exploring the unexplored. Looking where we haven't looked before. Examining harmonies and musical ideas which were once thought unruly. This is modern music. And if you want to succeed in the music world writing serious music (not movie music) you're probably going to have to write in this style.

They are still thought unruly. Modern music is about as bad as modern poetry. The best poetry written today is that which is written in styles that have been around a long time. You can't succeed in the music world writing atonal. You can only succeed in the music world unless you actually write music. Atonal is is just noise when by itself. Dissonance is something to be used in supplement to tonal music. Modern Art sucks! I'm tired of it! I really hope this new century doesn't decline in the area of Art as the last century did.

Modern music isn't just dissonance. It is exploring the unexplored. Looking where we haven't looked before. Examining harmonies and musical ideas which were once thought unruly. This is modern music. And if you want to succeed in the music world writing serious music (not movie music) you're probably going to have to write in this style.

There is something to be said about movie music and how it immortalizes classical music. Not only that written before, but written today as well. Every time someone turns on the TV or watches a movie, he is hearing music that breathes life into what he is witnessing. A movie soundtrack is quite similar to a tone poem, in that sense, and writing a soundtrack is no less serious than writing an opus.

Sean Christopher Stork

Nightengale Incorporated

There is something to be said about movie music and how it immortalizes classical music. Not only that written before, but written today as well. Every time someone turns on the TV or watches a movie, he is hearing music that breathes life into what he is witnessing. A movie soundtrack is quite similar to a tone poem, in that sense, and writing a soundtrack is no less serious than writing an opus.

Sean Christopher Stork

Nightengale Incorporated

Yes but unfortunately the music doesn't really work without the picture. The picture will work somewhat without the music however. Therefore the musici sn't really serious listening music. It's background music that helps provoke a certain emotion such as excitement or suspense. In the serious music world, people I've heard of such as Alexina Louie (I think that's how u spell her last name) and others have had to compose modern music to be respected. Do you think if Brahms or Lizst composed classical music people would have liked them? No. It is the same now.

I think one of the best fields of modern art is computer animation. I've seen kids at my school do incredible stuff, like outdoor scenes by rivers with thousands of leaves and everything. So, that surely is a field i like. I'm not to fond of some big splashes of paint on a canvas and considering it art, though. Picasso also doesn't "pique" me much.

A really funny scene in All In the Family is when Gloria brings home some modern art, a weird sculpture that doesn't really have any form. Then she starts saying how it depiects mankind's struggles and cruelty towards one another. And her fairly liberal husband just says, "What are you talking about?" A picture often speaks more to me than what "modern" art may be. But I'm not saying it's bad.

Same for modern poetry. Some I dislike. Some I do like. I actually think that there should be less poetry on the old stuff, nature, though, and try to explore the beauty in what is manmade. I enjoyed Whitman's "Song of Myself" a lot and most of Poe. And I enjoy Frost because all of those authors speak deeply of human nature.

I wouldn't say that you can't succeed writing atonal. But I admit, it's going to be harder to pull off. Atonal simply means a piece does not have a base key--it does not make it merely "sound" (unless the entire piece just makes no sense, in which case that composer must have really, really messed up or pounded his keyboard at random and called it music!)

And some movie soundtracks/themes--good ones--are very famous and are sold in "movie theme" CDs or movie soundtracks that are listened to like other music.

Yes but unfortunately the music doesn't really work without the picture. The picture will work somewhat without the music however. Therefore the musici sn't really serious listening music. It's background music that helps provoke a certain emotion such as excitement or suspense. In the serious music world, people I've heard of such as Alexina Louie (I think that's how u spell her last name) and others have had to compose modern music to be respected. Do you think if Brahms or Lizst composed classical music people would have liked them? No. It is the same now.

You obviously have never sat down and listened to a motion picture soundtrack. Many of them CAN stand on their own two feet, and many scholars agree that some of the best symphonic works written in our time are those coming from Motion Pictures. There are many instances where classical composers will cross-over to try their hand at film scoring. It's not easy for the artist, however, because he is restricted by the events on the screen.

However, in most cases, film scores and the films they are set to are mutually connected, and neither works well without the other, but together they are a very powerful art form. Let us not forget either, that the main idea for soundtrack composing came from utilizing music that was already written by the greats such as Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, Rossini, etc. Can you honestly tell me that one of your first experiences listening to a beloved concerto or aria wasn't from some referrance made in a cartoon or television show? I might not be the musician I am today had I not seen Elmer Fudd in a Viking uniform singing "Kill de wabbit, kill de wabbit!" You may not appreciate film scoring as art, but you can't deny that it IS a serious part of it.

Sean Christopher Stork

Nightengale Incorporated

*sigh*

I think the fact of the matter is that we do not understand each others points of view.

I write music the way that I live my life. I try new things everyday almost, I go with what feels natural without betraying myself, my Lord Jesus or my loved ones, and I wish to do it all in a glorifying and fulfilling manner to everyone involved directly. I do this in music by putting much time and energy into what I do, and try to do something new. Fact is, sonata form and the like didn't come in the ten commandments or anything like that, and therefore isn't the most timeless and enduring concept. Though they are very very good ideas, and you can learn a lot about the structure of music from them, there are many problems with the Classical, and even romantic ways of doing things, like there are with anything:

Most old forms, particularly sonata form, are formuliac.

~~often with classical music a well listened person will be able to tell, not which note, but which part will come next. Often times what compsoers are considered the greatest thwart most of that notion. Beethoven's 9th, for example, has movements ''out of order''. Fact is, no one really cares as long as it's beautiful or well done. So, if you really have the chops you won't need form, and in some cases, harmonic/melodic/rhythmic formula. See theres that word again... it makes many creaters, particularly me, that there is something binding your creativity. That is has been done before, and while that is all well and good for the most part, when I create a peice of music, not only do I want it to be original, I want it to be.. refreshing! Like a Rasberry Dr. Pepper in Death Valley. I want it to be as intellectually intense as I can muster, too. Thats (at least partially) why I always try to top myself, and do something new. Now why do you guys compsoe the way you do?