What is true originality (later, what music IS)

Well my goodness, doesn't it seem like it's about friggin time the general population started liking Schoenberg or Cage? It sure took a heck of a lot less time for all the other great composers!

I'm sure I'll read many more books in the future about music; but I do not expect to find anything that will change my belief that music (or FunMindSound, whatever you want to call it) is a real thing and not subject to the whims of postmodern academics. If I read these books; perhaps it'll fortify my argument even more than it already is. :)

Suddenly the debate has become much more civil. Someone get MAD AT ME again! :o jk :)

Just accept that the general populous don't agree with you and we'll be alright.

You must spray some sort of nerve-gas into your classrooms if you believe the general population doesn't agree with me. :o

Cage have yet to become household words.

Depends on the household. It's not just academics who realise the importance of Cage. And his music HAS been used in popular music. While it is true, Cage isn't sampled much (indeed, if at all) in hiphop, for instance, (that said, I feel it's only a matter of time before one of the more adventurous hiphoppers does sample him, considering the influence) but the whole concept of sampling is something Cage really helped introduce. Using other people's sounds wholesale in your own music was something new. And you ask Brian Eno if Cage has not been accepted into the mainstream yet. I believe he would answer that Cage's ideas influenced him, and he in turn influenced the Ambient movement - and that has had an influence on pop music.

In your country, the majority voted in George Bush. :o You really CAN'T use the general populus as a yardstick. People are in general stupid. Myself included. There are far more things I don't know about than I do. Therefore I am mostly stupid. Like everyone.

cd for "developing your baby's brain."

They should be. Maybe then we'd have a slightly more accepting and open minded world! (Musically!)

Originally posted by stefan inglis@Aug 18 2005, 09:54 PM

They should be. Maybe then we'd have a slightly more accepting and open minded world! (Musically!)

Why is acceptance and open mindedness so important? It seems to me these virtues have been vastly over-emphasized amongst western society's cultural elites, to the point where they actually end up serving the exact opposite purpose.

In the case of the textbook I described some 300 posts earlier, for the sake of being "accepting" and "open minded" they had to EXCLUDE Rachmaninov. So much for being "inclusive," which virtue I'm certain you would include in that list.

::edit::

And I'm sorry to hear you have such a pessimistic view of the common sense of ordinary people. ;)

Branching open/closed minded issue to Off-Topic because I was going to start something similar soon anyway.

An untapped, largely untested frontier is how kids react to different conditioning at their young impressionable ages. (I blame ethics.) Consider the unverifiable anecdote (or don't, I don't care) about some twelve-toner's kid who was fed a lot of that stuff growing up and consequently could not stand to listen to common-western-harmony-popular music. It hurt his ears. I mean, wow.

Branching open/closed minded issue to Off-Topic because I was going to start something similar soon anyway.

An untapped, largely untested frontier is how kids react to different conditioning at their young impressionable ages. (I blame ethics.) Consider the unverifiable anecdote (or don't, I don't care) about some twelve-toner's kid who was fed a lot of that stuff growing up and consequently could not stand to listen to common-western-harmony-popular music. It hurt his ears. I mean, wow.

Couldn't raising a kid entirely on 12-tone music be classified as child-abuse? ;)

I've heard of such stories. It is possible for the human mind to learn to accept anything. I listen to a lot of dissonant, atonal music. Well not a lot, but enough for it to be impossible for me to say that I don't enjoy it. It's not the same sort of enjoyment though.

A harder question to answer with such conditioning experiments is whether that child really is able to enjoy the music AS he would have enjoyed traditional music had he been conditioned with it instead.

I think one thing is clear---atonal, serialist music (specifically) is not natural. Every culture in the world has some sort of scale that contains some pythagorean intervals in it. Pentatonics, some variant of a harmonic minor, etc. and on and on. That was arrived at intuitively. There really is something in these intervals that just pleases the ear.

I've heard of such stories. It is possible for the human mind to learn to accept anything. I listen to a lot of dissonant, atonal music. Well not a lot, but enough for it to be impossible for me to say that I don't enjoy it. It's not the same sort of enjoyment though.

A harder question to answer with such conditioning experiments is whether that child really is able to enjoy the music AS he would have enjoyed traditional music had he been conditioned with it instead.

It's a different experience. So the answer is no. But not a "Poor kid, he can never enjoy it as much." What tools can you even use to compare enjoyment? Between two pieces of music? Between music and art?

I think one thing is clear---atonal, serialist music (specifically) is not natural. Every culture in the world has some sort of scale that contains some pythagorean intervals in it. Pentatonics, some variant of a harmonic minor, etc. and on and on. That was arrived at intuitively. There really is something in these intervals that just pleases the ear.

Poop on 'natural', and poop on Pythagoras. 1) atonal serialist music is based in the same twelve notes that we all know and love, which are related by a circle of fifths. It uses the same exact intervals, consequently. What it does not do is group these intervals in as familiar chunks.

2) The gamelan ensembles of Indonesia do not have pythagorean intervals. Not consistently. Not accurately. This has been attributed to the spectra of their metal percussion instruments, which are *inharmonic* and would not sound pleasing if tuned by perfect fifths. Yes, the human voice is harmonic, but yes, there are alternatives to harmonic timbres.

3) You did not personally arrive at fifths-based tuning intuitively, nor do you have any way of trying to do any intuitive tuning by now. When was the last time someone invented a music from innocence, from scratch?

I've heard of such stories. It is possible for the human mind to learn to accept anything. I listen to a lot of dissonant, atonal music. Well not a lot, but enough for it to be impossible for me to say that I don't enjoy it. It's not the same sort of enjoyment though.

It's a different experience. So the answer is no. But not a "Poor kid, he can never enjoy it as much." What tools can you even use to compare enjoyment? Between two pieces of music? Between music and art?

Poop on 'natural', and poop on Pythagoras. 1) atonal serialist music is based in the same twelve notes that we all know and love, which are related by a circle of fifths. It uses the same exact intervals, consequently. What it does not do is group these intervals in as familiar chunks.

2) The gamelan ensembles of Indonesia do not have pythagorean intervals. Not consistently. Not accurately. This has been attributed to the spectra of their metal percussion instruments, which are *inharmonic* and would not sound pleasing if tuned by perfect fifths. Yes, the human voice is harmonic, but yes, there are alternatives to harmonic timbres.

3) You did not personally arrive at fifths-based tuning intuitively, nor do you have any way of trying to do any intuitive tuning by now. When was the last time someone invented a music from innocence, from scratch?

Yeah, exactly. It's very hard to do such an experiment. Probably impossible.

True the scales arrived at in other cultures may not be exact, but they are close enough to these pleasing intervals that variation is possible. Like a whammy bar on a guitar. That isn't displeasing to the ear. I would submit that if it were not for a discerning human ear, these intervals across cultures would not bear similarity to pythagorean ones at all.

Why is acceptance and open mindedness so important? It seems to me these virtues have been vastly over-emphasized amongst western society's cultural elites, to the point where they actually end up serving the exact opposite purpose.

In the case of the textbook I described some 300 posts earlier, for the sake of being "accepting" and "open minded" they had to EXCLUDE Rachmaninov. So much for being  "inclusive," which virtue I'm certain you would include in that list.

::edit::

And I'm sorry to hear you have such a pessimistic view of the common sense of ordinary people.  ;)

About the textbook: it's a music HISTORY textbook, and I have already explained the difference between a great composer and a significant composer. And regardless of Rachmaninoff's abilities, would you at least concede that he had very little if any impact on music history, while people like Schoenberg and Cage were more influential, even if not necessarily more talented?

As a side note, I'm sick of seeing Carl Maria von Weber listed as one of the most important composers in history (I've seen more than one book do that), because he had similarly little real impact.

About the textbook: it's a music HISTORY textbook, and I have already explained the difference between a great composer and a significant composer.

How can something be said to be influential if it is impossible to derive influence from it because it is so homogeneous, insipid, and ridiculous?

However with something as substantial as REAL MUSIC, Rachmaninov was able to derive INFLUENCE from it and do something new with it. I still don't get why you're dead set on contradicting me when you agree that Rachmaninov completely owns those other guys.

Anyway if you think this post is out of line, please move it and your post to my "rachmaninov" post in the Free-For-All. If that's where its appropriate to pick a fight, please don't egg me on to fight here, if you don't want me to. Thanks.

No, I don't think you're out of line at the moment. Not yet, at least.

The fact remains: Schoenberg had followers. Some of them, including Berg, Webern, and Boulez, became fairly well-known in their own right. Cage had followers, even if anyone who claimed to follow Cage was basically someone who fell for his jokes.

You say Rachmaninoff derived influence from "real music". Yes, he was influenced by many other Romantic composers. But who built on what he did? Which composers further down the road listed Rachmaninoff as a primary influence?

The fact remains: Schoenberg had followers.

I've been around YC for years. I've heard almost everything that's been posted here. Few if any of the composers who have posted their work have listed Rachmaninoff as a major influence.

Heck, of all the tonal composers I know, exactly one considers Rachmaninoff to have significantly influenced his work. His music is decent, and certainly doesn't build on Rachmaninoff. Those who know me will attest that I search fairly extensively for obscure recent music, and I haven't found anything that uses Rachmaninoff as a foundation.

Please keep in mind: not only is there a difference between greatness and influence, there is also a difference between imitating a composer and building on what he did. Boulez clearly pushed serialism beyond what Schoenberg did; no one built on Rachmaninoff, and the the best of his followers only try to imitate him.

As for Cage, I consider him more influential as a philosopher than as a musician.

Just out of curiosity, what are your thoughts on Arvo Part, Toru Takemitsu, and others of their school?

A final thought on Schoenberg: one of the most difficult things to do with the twelve-tone system, and yet still quite doable, is to make music produced from a tone row still manage to suggest some tonal character. It takes a good amount of insight to manipulate a tone row in such a way as to suggest chords and harmonies, and yet at times Schoenberg was able to do exactly that. That doesn't mean I like most of his music, but I would suggest that your level of respect for Schoenberg would increase if you were to make a genuine attempt at writing musical-sounding twelve-tone music.

If you will, also listen to the fourth movement of my own horn concerto (waaay back in the compositions section), and tell me if you notice anything interesting about the main theme, other than it being in Dorian mode. Yes, I did dabble in serialism for a bit, and bits and pieces of that movement were the result.

I prefer to make my own judgments of music, based on how it sounds. I don't particularly care how a composer came up with it, it's only the end result that matters to me in the slightest.

I've been around YC for years.

Eddie Brown!

* laughs *

Hey, I tried Toru Takemitsu and Arvo Part on Amazon. Apparently they were minimalists?

I know there are some reactionaries/conservatives who think minimalism is just as worthy of scathing remarks as Cage is, but I am certainly not among that group. I love minimalism. I don't own any recordings of pure minimalism, but Keith Jarrett often plays long minimalistic passages in his solo improvisations, and I love improvising with minimal textures and rhythms in my own work, too. I think its beautiful, kind of like watching a slowly changing sky full of clouds. I think its up for debate whether composing such music is really as hard as more traditional ways of writing, but that doesn't matter. It's music, and it's beautiful.

CAGE DID NOT INFLUENCE MUSIC HISTORY

This is simply not true. As I have mentioned before and you have ignored, Brian Eno has made lots of very nice music and was directly inspired by John Cage. Please take back this statement as it is just wrong.

As for Rach - I think noone who has moved music forward has been inspired by Rach - as someone who innovates needs to be inspired by an innovator. Perhaps. This is mere speculation. I've heard lots of times amateur composers claiming Rach as an influence (as opposed to professional), but perhaps this is quite telling.

Which goes back to my claim: Rach inspired only imitators. On the other hand, Eno cannot be said to have imitated Cage, and Boulez cannot be said to have imitated Schoenberg. (And now that his name comes up... I can't help but recall Hsin's "Boulez! Boulez!" thread...)

That's an hilarious thread. I've just re-read it. Oh for those days again. That thread 'Boulez! Boulez!' was started in September 2002. *sigh*

How about this one, then, from nearly a year previous to 'Boulez! Boulez!'...

Joseph Sowa - 01:06pm Dec 5, 2001 PST

A serious post from the classical music discussion list at www.classical.net:

"Pierre Boulez, 75, was arrested and detained by Swiss police on Tuesday on suspicion of terrorist connections, according to National Public Radio.

They questioned him for three hours about an article he wrote some 40 years ago, suggesting that "all opera houses be blown up." After an interrogation of three hours, Boulez was released. Swisss police neither charged Boulez nor apologized.

Janos Gereben/SF [author]"

Haha...

Pierre Boulez, 75, was arrested and detained by Swiss police on Tuesday on suspicion of terrorist connections

I don't remember that one! What a world we live in.

They arrested old Pierre Boulez, whose worst crime besides musical kookiness was probably shoplifting a piece of nougat in 1934.

Meanwhile Mohammed Allah-Akbar al-Zobro enters the U.S. on a student visa with a full scholarship to work on a degree in anti-American studies at an Ivy League university, drops out of school, overstays his visa, buys enough firearms and explosives to blow the U.S. Capitol Building and everything in it to Mars (no questions asked) - and he's walking around Culver City, California (there's a really nice blue-tiled mosque there, you know) - scott free - with half a dozen phone calls a day to an unlisted number in Amman, Jordan on his phone bill.

What a lovely world. Just frikkin' lovely.