fourier jr said:
i don't understand modern music one bit. I've got a dvd of glenn gould playing stuff by the members of the so-called "vienna school" which is all abstract & weird, & not really musical at all. some people think that stuff is great though, but i can't understand why.
You are not alone here. The overwhelming majority of the people agree with you, even among those who are open to nearly everything else. the question we need to ask here then is "Why does the twentieth Century 'serious music' meet with such overwhelming rejection? What in its character leads to this? Also, what is the future hope for it?" To that last question I'd venture to say that what you called contemporary music has little future. It'll probably hang on for some time (largely due to the insistence of its advocates in academicia) but it will not be accepted by the people at large.
fourier jr said:
I've heard other 20th-century stuff by stravinsky, rimsky-korsakov, prokofiev & others & i don't get it. is can someone explain why it's so interesting
Here you lost me. These were not "contemporary music" composers. Though two of them lived well into the twentieth century, they were very much composers in the traditional style (even if somewhat transitional).
zoobyshoe said:
No, I can't, really. I can't tell from listening to this music why anyone bothered writing it. I wish I had some insight, but everytime it is explained to me it sounds like unmitigated BS.
It sounds that way to you and to billions of others. Many see it as the "Emperor's New Music".
zoobyshoe said:
Musicians I used to know claimed that modern music had to be appreciated from a solid background in theory and harmony.
That pretty much consigns 'modern music' to the status in which it will never be accepted by the public at large - - in which case its composers will 'starve' unless they can find governments and foundations to dedicate 'welfare' programs to them.
The Bob said:
To finish, it is unfair to say that what we think is rubbish actually is. There must be some brilliance behind it. It takes a very open-minded person to accept all these different types of music.
That is one of the major problems with modern music. It requires that people adapt and accommodate to it rather than it acommodating to and serving the needs of the people. That is hardly a formula for gaining acceptance.
franznietzsche said:
By 1900 we had gone about as far as we could with purely tonal music (like in the baroque or classical style) and even the romantic period hadn't livened things up wuite enough. So composers needed something new to express new themes, to keep from rehashing the same stuff over and over.
Had we gone as far as we could? Or, was it simply people looking for an easy way to fame; for a simple formulaic mechanism into which they could simply plug in their desires, and crank out an instant masterpiece? What about R. Strauss, Sibelius, Ravel, Shostakovich, Copeland, Bernstein, Jazz, Show music? They didn't seem to have trouble finding material in this 'used-up' form.
zoobyshoe said:
I've heard this explanation a lot, and it seems to be logical. The trouble, though, with the modern music, when all is said and done, is that it is so unpleasant to hear. I'd rather listen to the interesting explanations of why it is noteworthy music, than listen to the music itself.
You and most others.
zoobyshoe said:
If we take the intervals from 1 to 12 and rearrange them randomly, almost any result will be of some mathematical interest. The more of a mathemetician you are, the more interesting relationships you'll find. This is a new way to approach music, but is it a musical way to approach it?
According to the Twentieth Century definition (formulated by music academicia) music is anything that is deliberately produced and involves sound (pitch). This, though would include the sounds of a teletype machine, or a touch-tone phone. Does that make this music? What we have come to is a disagreement between the traditional "peoples" definition of what music is and that of musical academicia. (Interestingly enough, "Rappers" may help carry this one for the academicians.)
hypnagogue said:
All enjoyment you get from any piece of music is a function of the brain/mind. There is no such thing as sounds that have inherent internal integrity or coherence.
Not totally true! We find that there is a certain coherence characteristic of music that appeals universally to our peoples. This coherence characteristic stems from the basic harmonic nature of the notes found in all of our musical scales.
zoobyshoe said:
That's true. The fact we respond to certain successions of notes as having internal integrity is more an indication of how we are structured than of how the music is structured.
It turns out, that it is a function of both! We as humans automatically respond to certain combinations and successions of notes, that depend upon the harmonic relationships between those notes. This basic relationship holds across all of our cultures.
zoobyshoe said:
But there is such a thing as sounds that sound like they do. I understand that this is us responding to a certain broad range of harmonies and rhythms because of how we are structured, but we talk about music as though the coherence is in the music.
And when I say "the way we are structured" I mean the human race, not how a given individual is conditioned. Humans respond to a certain broad range of harmonies and rhythms as "music", as opposed to mere sound, and especially as opposed to noise.
That all being the case, the difference between a succession of sounds that immediately strike you as having internal integrity, that is: all the elements compliment and strengthen each other, and a succession of sounds that don't seem to bear any relation to each other should be clear. With repetition, over time, the latter can take on the illusion of coherence simply because we are used to hearing them sounded in succession. The contents of a junk drawer can seem to comprise a "set" if every time you look into it all the same things are always there in the same arrangement.
You are right here! Certain sounds appear automatically to us to have coherence, because according to the way the brain is wired, they do! Or, as a certain 'Edward Kennedy Ellington' said, "If it sounds good, then it is good!" In the end, the coherence is in the music!
What you describe here is both an automatic coherence and a familiarity. We develop familiarity with certain patterns that we hear repeated, but the basic coherence is already there.
There are two basic ironies here:
First, proponents of the 'New Music' tell us that to appreciate their forms, we must hear them enough to become familiar, but on the other hand, give us something that we don't want to hear over and over. Their 'music' intentionally strives to randomize its occurrences, thus taking out all semblances of pattern. Then they want us to sit through and hear it often enough to find patterns and coherence where they have sought to remove them. Is that asking a bit much?
Second, musicians themselves approach music differently than the rest of us. It's that old "right brain" - "left brain" thing. Whereas most of us approach music as something to 'feel', and thus need some form of coherences to hang on to, musicians are more apt (but not absolutely) to approach it analytically. The "feel" is of a somewhat lower importance. What proponents of 'modern music' need, is for us to all become musicians first. It'll never happen, but even if it did people would never drop their need for the emotional security of music's inherent coherence. What would be the point?
hypnagogue said:
If what I said above was accurate, then here I assume what you mean is that our brains/minds have a natural tendency to perceive certain perceptual phenomena as coherent wholes, but can learn to do so for other phenomena. So more traditional classical music conforms well to our natural tendencies for holistic aural perception, and the more abstract/intellectual use of the 12 tone scale does not, although we can learn to perceive it at least partially in such a way, given enough exposure. If that's correct, I think I could buy that-- but I still suspect it has more to do with how the music is composed than the scale itself. I know for a fact that different cultures use different scales, although I don't know offhand if they tend to use more or less notes than Western music.
Different cultures have different scales, but they all derive from the same source, the basic "overtones" that are inherent in sound. In fact, almost all scales used in the different cultures are basic subsets and supersets of each other.
zoobyshoe said:
Some of the music is borderline, and I'd say Stravinsky falls in that category. His stuff is a long way off from pieces for "prepared" piano by John Cage. Stravinksky is much more "coherent" to being with than John Cage. There may be a lot of other composers I'd label as "borderline coherent" that I've never listened to. I recall hearing some Scriabin, and stuff by Max Reger that might be in this category.
Please, don't throw Stravinsky in with the "contemporary music" group. He had his own thing, but basically his music is solidly traditional. What he had was continually shifting rhythm patterns, sometimes pretty abrupt, but this is easy to become accustomed to because his melodies and harmonies are pretty standard.
zoobyshoe said:
I was exposed to hours and hours of "contemporary" music in college, but never to the same pieces repeatedly. I was always so happy when these pieces were over, and glad I'd never have to listen to them again. All the conservatory students composed or performed that kind of music along with the accessble kind, and all the college students like myself went to hear our friend's recitals. There was some recital or another every day of the week.
I feel your pain. (in the past tense) We call that 'job security for professors'.
zoobyshoe said:
I'm pretty sure that classical Indian Sitar music uses a very different scale than ours, yet you can pick up on the coherence and harmony just about instantly. The rhythms they favor are also quite different than our own, but they are still obvious and coherent rhythms. The contemporary music that is bothering fourierjr and I seems designed to sound like unstructured noise made with traditional instruments. Quite a bit of the serial music I've heard seems to have been written with the idea of making the most incoherent possible line from the 12 tones. I'm wondering if you've been exposed to the stuff we're bothered about.
Indian and oriental scales are not as different as one might think. Same for middle eastern, or even those of the 'so called' primitive cultures. The rhythm differences are fascinating, but not hard to pick up on. Try to listen to Indian drum patterns some time. They are really fascinating.
I will try to get back to the basic "coherence" factor in music, and discuss the universal similarities later.
KM