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Since this is a starcraft related website, i thought a post like this would much better be created as a blog, naturally.
I have noticed that, despite the infinite wisdom and bold confidence that the great unwashed internet masses posess, not many people have a solid grasp on what music truly is, other than what they believe it to be based on its cultural implications. Which means: everybody likes their own shit, and everything else sucks except for "their shit". If anyone is bold enough to say that a band or song "sucks", the philosophy police come to the rescue to do what they do best, which is to claim that no one can have a thought, because all thoughts are meaningless anyways, and nothing can be judged. And i admire them for taking such a radical "catch all" stance that puts them oh so high above everyone else who dares to try to make a solid claim of what is fact vs what is not. Everybody likes to be smart. And claiming that there "are no rules" and "nothing can be judged" really makes a person seem like they got it all figured out. But, the fact is, many things can be judged. And there are many concrete facts in this world. Mind games in the sky are great for feeling good about yourself, but for everyone else stuck down on land tasks require something more than just lofty guesses and ego boosting "philosophy". Many, if not all people who read this will go into it thinking there "are no rules", and that nothing is explainable when it comes to the "magic" of music. Good. I want you to remember that that is how you felt, and also how sure you were of your opinion before you realized you are wrong after you read this entire blog. This is a great opportunity for you to experience how easy it is to feel that you are 100 percent right about something, only to realize in the end the world is bigger and more interesting than you thought.
The subject matter is Music. More importantly, what music really is, and what composition is. Of course, the complete guide to everything under the sun on those subject matters is well beyond the scope of this crappy blog that will surely just get flamed anyways. But, i feel like at least something must be said for those who would stand to gain from it.
So anyways, what is "Music"? Is it a video with people dancing and acting like they invented youth and beauty? No. Thats culture. Is music a lifestyle like rapper vs rocker vs country boy? No, thats culture. "Music" is none of those things we are brainwashed to believe by both media, and our own personal emotional longings. Music is a language of tones or bits of information that exist in time. Its really easy to get lost in the words used in that description and write it off as drivel. But think about the words being used as function, rather than connotive meaning. Music is a language, just like written language. There are periods. There are commas. And music exists over time, rather than in a frozen state, which means that the entire song or phrase occurs in sequence. The magic of music is made possible because it exists as elapsed time, unlike a picture which is static and remains the same for as long as you look at it.
So right there, we already have 2 rules. Remember the you from 2 paragraphs ago, who thought "there are no rules in music". Well there are 2 rules right there that essentially define music and separate it from almost all other forms of human expression. Its identifying features alone are already setting concrete rules. For a song to exist at all it has already played by 2 major rules, that it is a language of tones that elapse over time.
So, if that is music at its core, then what defines the language? And what defines "time"? It is the human brain. Already, a 3rd rule. Already, something that cannot be changed and everything that comes after is within the scope of the 3rd rule, which is, that all music being listened to by human beings is interpreted and experienced through the computer that is the human brain. As science has proven, the human brain is a prediction machine that tries to organize and categorize everything. Everything we experience musically we experience because the way the human brain works. And it works the exact same as it did since the caveman days. Many people think that music is evolving. But that is wrong. Music cant evolve. Music cant ever be evolved. Not until the human brain itself evolves. There is no advancement of music. Music doesnt get better or more complex as new styles emerge. "Style" is cultural. The human brain is the same, and human emotions are the same as they have always been. Therefore music cannot evolve. Not until the human brain does. It is the receptor, so no matter how complex or detailed or refined musicians try to become, in the end, it is the human brain that is the receptor and therefore the limiter of what music is. Many young people convince themselves that modern music is somehow more evolved, but it isnt. It factually cannot be. It is simply more culturally relevant, which they selfishly attribute to its worth as "music".
You probably are wondering how there is a "period" in music. Or a "comma". The answer lies in the human brain, and how it perceives frequencies. A musical note, is a frequency. When two notes are heard together or in sequence the human brain (a computer) tries to interpret the ratios of the frequencies. Every single human brain on earth that functions normally percives these ratios in the exact same way. Some of you might want to contest that statement (even though its a fact of science). To you i ask, does anyone feel at ease when the Jaws theme plays? No. It doesnt matter if you are from india, or the USA, or korea in the 20s. All humans since the days of cavemen have the same organizing principles for ratios of frequencies. Complex ratios result in emotional tension. Less complex ratios result in less tension. The emotional response is universal. All human beings. All ages. All races. All sexes. Now and in the past. This hasnt changed, and will not likely change any time soon. So, here we are again. Another concrete rule, in a world where people claim there are no "rules" to music.
Lets try an example to make a point. If a musician plays a G chord on the guitar or piano etc, followed by an Am chord, every single human being on earths brain will read those ratios, and want to hear the G major recur to resolve the frequency ratio tension that it experienced when moving from the frequencies of the notes in G major to the frequencies of the notes in A minor. It is a universal that trumps taste and genre and style. There is no "taste" involved. It is simple math that the brain illicits an emotional response from. Every element of music from melody to harmony to beat works this way. You may think you are unique because you like this weeks flavor of techno, or maybe you completely shun all electronic music and only listen to records of homemade wooden instruments, but no matter what you want to think, we all share the same brain, which interprets frequency ratios in the same way. Everyone feels tense during the jaws music. Everyone feels rest after a V-I cadence. Everyone senses a key modulation when signalled through a 7th chord other than the tonic's V7 chord. And the list goes on and on. Human emotional response to varying frequency ratios is universal. Taste does not factor in. To claim it does is to believe the earth is flat.
As stated at the start of this blog, the entirety of music composition is beyond the scope of a blog like this. But, a few words on parallel construction never hurt a single person trying to understand the magic of music.
Parallel construction can occur on many levels, and in many different ways. It can be used, abused, and even avoided, all to gain certain emotional responses from the listener. Parallel construction is possibly the most critical of all tools a writer can use to become stronger. And the best thing about it is, the more you become familiar with it in terms of a single element of construction, the more you can apply it to other areas to get even further results and eventually get to the point where you are creating works of actual "art". NOT just personal expression.
Parallel construction exists because the human brain likes to chunk bits of information together. Its easier for it to put similar things in categories so that it can retain more information at once. If it can, it tries to break a chunk of information down from lets say 16 different unique things, into two groups of 8, each containing two groups of 4, that each contain two groups of 2. An example would be if you played a ticking sound that went tick tick tick tick tick over and over, eventually your brain starts to want to perceive it as tick TICK tick TICK tick TICK even if the sounds are identical. It will try to chunk it into groups. This is another human universal. This is another "rule". Im sure the people who thought there were no rules in music are feeling pretty stupid right now. But dont feel stupid. There is no shame in ignorance. There is only shame in it if you choose to stick with ignorance even after you have been shown the truth.
So anyways, a smart writer will not look at his song as a verse, chorus etc. He will look at it as binary, and try to create groups of call and answer groups within groups within groups. Adn the beauty part is that any element can be used to facilitate this type of logic while composing. Maybe the music itself doesnt exude any strict or clever parallel construction, but the lyrical content does, or vice versa. For any of you paying attention, this means the greatest thing an artist can ever hope for: the end of writers block. No longer are you sitting and waiting for a great idea or an inspired moment. You can create strong art at any time, anywhere, once you have a solid grasp on how parallel construction is used in strong writing. If you look at the history of great music through these eyes, you will see, that it doesnt matter the genre. It doesnt matter the style. It doesnt matter whether the writer was handsome or fat and ugly. Great writing is great writing. There are no classics that avoid the genius of parallel construction. Ever. And new classics continue to spawn even now in this wastelend of culture created by corporations that have tried to make sellable art out of dog shit. The cream always rises to the top, through the use of clever/charming parallel construction in song elements. This will never change. Because the human brain always wants to chunk information into groups within groups. If you as the artist finds clever ways to make those groups match yet not be entirely predictable, you will be better than 99 percent of other songwriters. Sounds too easy right? Its not, but it seems that way because hardly anyone takes the time to figure any of this shit out. Everyone is too busy feeling smart by claiming there "are no rules" to music.
When a song lacks clever use of parallel construction, it can be seen simply by looking at the song itself. When a song lacks intelligent use of call and answer grouping, it can be seen simply by looking at the music itself. It is not a matter of "taste". Its either there or it isnt. When a song changes key randomly for no functional reason at all (creating unneeded listener fatigue), it can be seen easily. This is how someone can look at a song and say yeah thats a poorly written song, and be right. Poorly received by the public is a completely different argument. Yeah, a song can be a massive hit and suck. But when that happens it has more to do with culture and fashion/sex than with "music". When we are talking about music as art we are not talking about fashion or performer charisma. Those are separate. Almost all popular music consists of average writing ability paired with a huge marketing campaign or image gimmick. Even musicians with reputations as "odd artistic geniuses" usually are just average writers with a cleverly executed public image. That goes for both mainstream and underground acts.
To end this massive pile of words with something a bit more usable, id like to state a couple things that i think are dead giveaways regarding whether or not a songwriter is actually "writing" music or just ape-ing what he thinks he is hearing in the songs he is trying to imitate/emulate etc.
The two biggest mistakes in songwriting technique made by almost all amateur songwriters, and many professional songwriters including famous bands:
1. Failing to correctly/cleverly resolve tension within existing musical elements of the work
and
2. Unknowingly resolving tension that was never there to begin with.
I wish i had the time to really go far into the detail of what defines "tension" vs what defines a balance between too much or not enough unity within song elements but its just too much work to write it all down. I have had people ask me if i could go into more detail about how to identify strong writing vs weak writing, and all i can say is, study the classics, no matter how unhip they might seem. Study not the style or the instrumentation, study the form. Look at how the writer uses parallel construction in lyrics, rhyme, melody rhythm patterns, metric position of the highest and lowest note of the structural phrases, etc etc. Alternate unique elements in and out of recurring elements to create predictability within unpredictability. These are all good starting points. Everything you need to learn to write high level modern songs can be found in the elements of form found in classic songs. The secret is, even the classics were ripping off compositional techniques they learned from that era's previous era of classics. Style and culture change. Human emotional response to form do not.
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I think the main issue regarding music is, that you simply can not properly enjoy the real good stuff (like you mentioned tension) while doing something else. So when listening to the radio while at work or doing homework, i think shallow music is just the best thing you can do. You have some harmonic sounds in your ear and thats about all you (should) need in such situations, as you need to concentrate on other stuff.
But still, the high class music, with all that tension and other good stuff can only be enjoyed properly when listened to with nearly full concentration. But this is a concept, i feel like a lot of people today simply are not aware of. Some people just don't know, that there is music that gets like a 30 on a 1-to-10-scale in comparison what they usually hear, but only if you really listen to it.
I had a music teacher once. He tried to teach us this concept, however i think he was not aware of it. He simply said "now listen to this", turned on some high class classic music, sat down on his chair and then you could see him drifting of into some sort of mental trance. So he sits there, looking like an ape, his eyes closed and just listens while about 30 pupils sit in the room, not understanding a thing, thinking "this music sucks and is boring", and mainly lol'ing about the teachers appearance. He just failed trying to do intense listening to music with the whole class, because he didn't make that concept aware to the class, maybe because it was just a natural thing for him and he didn't even know. (just for the record, even if he had stated this, i highly doubt it would have worked because kids are stupid and would have thought "what a weird guy, i don't listen to him if he's talking such bs!")
In the end, this is the main reason why i never try to promote the music i listen to to other people. Because, in order to fully grasp it, intense listening is required. and i for once am far to lazy to promote that concept along with the music, and also i don't want to get into arguments about how stupid i sound when i try to explain this to anybody who just isn't willing to understand it.
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I agree with most of what you say, though the patronising message of 'now you'll see why you're wrong children', is probably going to rub readers up the wrong way.
Essentially yes, music does have rules, and taste isn't totally subjective. The universal cross-cultural critical agreement on the greats over centuries is also fairly strong evidence of this.
Having said this, I think you slightly overstate the case. As Schoenberg famously argued, music can evolve, as people become more accustomed to dissonances, and can perceive them as pleasurable. A rough history of western music shows more and more incredibly effective use of dissonance, until it reached atonality (which doesn't seem to have been so effective, for the reasons you state).
Cheers
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What do you consider a "good" way to resolve tension? I hope it's not restricted to V-I. What do you consider "wrong" ways?
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Your first rule that music is a language of tones elapsed over time is incorrect. There are many contemporary composers of music and electronic music that do not even use pitch! The organization of sound temporally is a more encompassing definition.
However, by accepting this new definition, you accept that pitch itself can be organized outside the rules of traditional tonality. New systems that arise from this must be judged on their own terms. In other words, you must realize if a piece or song if adhering to traditional rules of tonality (in which there are "correct" and "incorrect" uses of dissonance) or is an autonomous work.
Edit: I should note that when I say traditional tonality, I am speaking in terms of the "classical tradition" in which there are theoretical rules which govern the use of dissonance. Not contemporary tonality which has long since been emancipated!
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Firstly, I was livid while reading this. Why do you find it necessary to be a condescending asshole while you're trying to teach people things? Of course there are rules and conventions to be followed when creating strong music. I think even the least informed music fan could tell you that.
You make music so ugly in your thesis. You say that everyone's brains interpret tones and rhythm the same way, thus there is empirically stronger and weaker music. Anything above these primal mathematical tones is frivolous style. How can you contend that style is frivolous? Please elaborate.
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Except what is considered to be dissonant has changed quite radically over time and along with it, the ways of resolving tension has also changed over time. There also is quite a variance of what people hear to be "right" in musical traditions around the world. Your entire post is extremely eurocentric in its interpretation of music.
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On December 19 2010 02:45 koreasilver wrote: Except what is considered to be dissonant has changed quite radically over time and along with it, the ways of resolving tension has also changed over time. There also is quite a variance of what people hear to be "right" in musical traditions around the world. Your entire post is extremely eurocentric in its interpretation of music. I agree with this.
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There will NEVER be surefire rules as to what sounds good and what doesn't. I bet someone went up to Debussy and told him that he couldn't compose like he did and have it sound good.
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There was a time when anyone that wanted to write music like Benjamin Britten was considered to be out of touch with music.
Poof, Britten is now immortalized by Arvo Part.
Oh wait, the OP seems to be completely unaware of the serialism era that occurred not even that long ago to which most of the minimalists reacted against. Just from the way you talk about some things in the post.
\o/
Even besides all this, you can try to describe music as abstract physical vibrations, but you're still not explaining music. You spurn what you call the "philosophies" when you yourself are just spouting your own reductionism throughout your entire tirade.
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I'm kind of impressed in a perverse way that anybody could have such a narrow-minded, reductionist view of music. Where did these ideas come from?
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The OP's main problem is that the post reads too much like a rant. You can't openly insult people and expect them to take you seriously. However, the idea that music has varying rules is an interesting topic. I think it can be argued, but not on a purely qualitative basis.
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See I don't agree with you. I started out agreeing with you, even though I found you condescending, but this agreeableness diminished with time.
What about avant-garde or progressive musicians who defy these "natural" progressions of notes and parallel structure?
How do you deal with dissonance and atonality in music?
Why can I listen to Behold... The Arctopus for example, and enjoy it, when 99.9% of the population hates it because they can't find the structures in it to follow? I've had no formal musical training, so it's not something stupid like I'm listening to music for musicians.
Also, to poke a giant hole in your argument. Not all human brains are the same, sorry to break it to you, and not all emotional responses are the same. Emotional response is based on experience and *gasp* interpretation. The notes are the same, they sound the same, but the emotions they provoke are different based on the listeners interpretation. If I took the same song, and two people, and played them the song, say at their mother's funeral for one, and at their wedding for the other, any subsequent listening is going to provoke very different emotional responses.
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Summary of the last 10 responses: You are bad and wrong.
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I think your argument is based on a non sequitur. You appear to argue against aesthetic relativism, but only really discuss music theory. Sure, there are seemingly objective rules in music, but that tells us nothing about how beautiful the content of a composition is (i.e. how much I may like it), no matter how well written it may be. Structure and form tells us nothing about content.
A certain set of tones may (for the sake of argument) universally evoke a certain emotional response from people, but that does not have anything to do with whether or not we consider that set of tones beautiful (or: if we like it or not). I may like it, someone else may not. That is taste. Whether or not that set of tones actually is beautiful is a question of aesthetics (i.e. beauty) and not music theory (i.e. rules of composition).
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On December 19 2010 02:58 Holgerius wrote:Show nested quote +On December 19 2010 02:45 koreasilver wrote: Except what is considered to be dissonant has changed quite radically over time and along with it, the ways of resolving tension has also changed over time. There also is quite a variance of what people hear to be "right" in musical traditions around the world. Your entire post is extremely eurocentric in its interpretation of music. I agree with this. I also agree with this - however even in a Euro-centric view of music you are wrong. Music has certainly evolved throughout history, in every sense of the word. Look no further than The Well-Tempered Clavier, Bach's attempt to change the music world's paradigm on proper tuning. Beyond that, conventions of proper dissonance have changed throughout history - while your view of controlled dissonance was acceptable during the Renaissance, composers like Claudio Monteverdi started a musical transition as he popularized "text painting" and uncontrolled dissonance. His works were extremely popular despite breaking the rules you've outlined. And to touch on your ideas on "proper" chord transitions - it is not a natural thing for people to desire a correct conclusion to a progression... modern music and your own musical training has made you think that way. In medieval music, composers always concluded their works on a perfect chord because it was considered the most beautiful at the time (thanks to Pythagoras) - modern music would consider it a hollow and lifeless chord.
I would suggest reading further into music history - how composers write music and likewise how listeners perceive music has constantly changed over the course of time. I gave you a few examples that I hope will make you rethink your narrow viewpoint. Also please don't restrict yourself to western music, it is worthwhile to study eastern music, or computer music - broaden your perspectives.
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Yeah, I was actually quite bummed out by this blog. I'm deeply interested in music and the title of the OP seemed promising, but really, the tone was very off-putting. The arguments are not entirely solid, and I also miss a deeper respect for musical culture in its many variations. I don't see the beauty in a music that is cut off from culture. I don't see why certain compositional techniques should be our measurement for beauty. Seriously, I'm not even entirely sure what your point is, because I simply don't understand how your arguments are related and what you're aiming at. In its entirety, this blog is just so obscure. Please dude, for the sake of music, keep and open mind - and a clear head. :-)
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Although I completely agree with your initial sentiments -- I look down people who think everything about msuic or the arts is "subjective" -- I have to say your definition is still too narrow, although it does apply to about 90 percent of music in the world. I think the point you made about skill involved in inducing tension and the resolving it might be your best argument, but even this, doesn't seem to apply to certain music trying to evoke stasis -- look no further than certain works by Debussy, not to mention bunch of avante garde composers,. Therefore, I think a more productive -- because of its universality -- approach might be to define "art" (or good art) instead of "music." Music is just another medium of the arts. Not to say this is any easier, of course.
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To people who are bringing up examples of dissonace or atonal music: I would say the majority of these music is still concerned with creating a certain tension (not necessarily harmonic), and resolving it. At least, this is what I have concluded from studying some Schoenberg, Webern, and other avant garde composers. I am not sure if OP had this in mind, though.
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But it's obvious from the serialists that what constitutes as "pleasant" isn't so simple and narrowly predestined like this guy so adamantly claims.
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That's obvious indeed. I just like the point he made about how most music essentially creation of tension and resolution of it. Or was that his point? Maybe not
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Reading some of his past posts though, not only is he a reductionist but he also probably thinks the serialists didn't write music and were second rate garbage composers.
lol
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=151314#15
People always talk about breaking the "rules" of music... this is a great example of how the rules can be broken without turning your song into an atonal pile of garbage, and actually propelling it forward and making it stand out. The chromatic chord appears on the word "everybody", temporarily hinting at a transient key change, then quickly changes back to normal tonality immediately afterwards, preventing the songs harmony from sounding formless and atonal by obscuring the original key, which is a mistake made almost always in modern second rate writing.
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=175685¤tpage=5#97
There is a secret to making popular music. All you have to do is make the listener feel good about themselves. Anyone saying otherwise is kidding themselves and living in fantasyland. If you make the listener feel confident and strong, and that they are part of something bigger and better than themselves, you will give them a strong positive emotional reaction which they will then associate with your song or band. Just like religion, human beings attach themselves to things that are larger and more powerful because it is an instinctual survival tool. But you will not hear many people say this about music and "taste" in general, because it diminishes the human desire to see ourselves as magical mystical unique souls whos opinions and tastes originate purely from the most sincere origins. But sadly, we are biologically programmed, and there is no magic. People will choose their favorite of a million different shades of art, but, in the end and under even semi-adept scrutiny, all of those varieties of taste still have underlying fundamental similarities. Genetics hold culture on a very short leash.
As far as musical skill goes, beatmaking and electronica are so easy to make its literally sickening. Yeah, maybe joe blow cant just sit down at a computer and make great electronica or beats, but any midlevel skilled musician can. The hardest skill in music is songwriting. It is the least in supply, and the most difficult skill to obtain. Many many musicians try their entire lives and still never gain even moderate skill in songwriting. Go read any songwriting forum on the internet and youll see. Most people are completely clueless as how to write well or improve, and instead spend most of their time obsessing over instrumental performance (guitar solos etc) or recording/equipment/producing. Thats because those are skills that are easily obtained through blind repetition, or mastery of electronic equipment. Songwriting is by far the most difficult of all, thats why there are so few strong writers, and so many strong performers and producers. Go down to guitar center on any friday and tell me what you see... dozens of great drummers and great guitar players and djs. And yet? Not any great strong songwriters.
There are alot of people in this thread making claims about music that are merely publicly adopted notions that dont really mean anything, and arent necessarily true. The general public has no idea how little they truly understand music. They simply know what they like, and what they like is based on their ego and their emotional/identity/lifestyle desires. So, thats about it.
Superemphasis on the luls.
Well, the thing about his whole tension point is that he interlinked it so heavily with his (lol) argument of genetically preordained sense of tonality that the moment that falls apart everything else goes with it.
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Yes, most music is concerned with the dialectic model of tension and resolution within all musical parametres, but even this has been discussed/debated by the avant garde. Examples of this can be found in works of John Cage, who throughout his career tried to expand the concept of music based on the use of silence and randomness. How does the model of tension - resolution relate to a silent (non-existent?) piece of music? Is the dialectic of tension - resolution descriptive of a music that consists of randomized events?
Edit. Lol, nice finds koreasilver! I hope Mellotron will pozt some more stuffz in ziz thread...
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Yeah, I have to say the bolded things are rather lul-worthy.
Sense of consonance opposed to dissonace is not really "genetic" -- it is more of a natural and physical phenomenon (ie not exclusive to humans), having to do with partials and harmonics. Since this is one of the most salient features of music (pitch and harmony), this indeed has always been the most typical source of tension and resolution in music. I don't think the OP was arguing against in this thread anyway.
Generally speaking, OP reminds me of myself around 5 years ago. He is a new fanatic of "good" and complex music and is starting to develop ideas about what differentiates them from the banal, all the while developing a strong disdain for most mainstream music. He is bit blinded by his passion at the moment but with a few years and more study, I am sure he will become more mature in his understanding of the arts. At least, he is not a sheep like 95 percent of the people out there.
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In any case, I would like to ask the OP about what his choice of music is. Following his criteria (focus on "composition" etc) according to this thread, it would seem that he should regard the harmonically and structurally complex compositions of Mahler, Bruckner, or Wagner the highest. I am bit puzzled because it sounds like he listens to classical rock mostly, which in terms compositional ambition, pales in comparison to late-romantic works.
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He keeps mentioning classics and if it means classic rock instead of classical music I'm really going to laugh. All along I thought he meant classical but it's unlikely because usually they would just use the word "classical".
I never knew people who listened to classic rock primarily could have this mindset.
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On December 19 2010 07:15 c.Deadly wrote:Show nested quote +On December 19 2010 02:58 Holgerius wrote:On December 19 2010 02:45 koreasilver wrote: Except what is considered to be dissonant has changed quite radically over time and along with it, the ways of resolving tension has also changed over time. There also is quite a variance of what people hear to be "right" in musical traditions around the world. Your entire post is extremely eurocentric in its interpretation of music. I agree with this. I also agree with this - however even in a Euro-centric view of music you are wrong. Music has certainly evolved throughout history, in every sense of the word. Look no further than The Well-Tempered Clavier, Bach's attempt to change the music world's paradigm on proper tuning. Beyond that, conventions of proper dissonance have changed throughout history - while your view of controlled dissonance was acceptable during the Renaissance, composers like Claudio Monteverdi started a musical transition as he popularized "text painting" and uncontrolled dissonance. His works were extremely popular despite breaking the rules you've outlined. And to touch on your ideas on "proper" chord transitions - it is not a natural thing for people to desire a correct conclusion to a progression... modern music and your own musical training has made you think that way. In medieval music, composers always concluded their works on a perfect chord because it was considered the most beautiful at the time (thanks to Pythagoras) - modern music would consider it a hollow and lifeless chord. I would suggest reading further into music history - how composers write music and likewise how listeners perceive music has constantly changed over the course of time. I gave you a few examples that I hope will make you rethink your narrow viewpoint. Also please don't restrict yourself to western music, it is worthwhile to study eastern music, or computer music - broaden your perspectives. Just want to point out that The Well-Tempered Clavier has the best piece of music ever written in it; BWV 848. :D
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Someone shoudl really start a classical music thread.
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On December 19 2010 13:46 phosphorylation wrote: Someone shoudl really start a classical music thread. As one TLer put it, they always degrade into pure YouTube threads.
edit:
(But you're still welcome to try.)
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Maybe the rules shoudl be to disallow posting youtube videos without having a substantial amount of text to accompany it. The thread can be sustained by posting any articles regarding classical music and consistent posting up analysis of anything relevant (performance, composition, theory) to jump start discussion. Could be very interseting.
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You have successfully described the science behind Music, but have completely left out the art half. Even if a song follows all of your rules perfectly, it can still sound terrible. Sure maybe if you build up tension and then resolve it perfectly everyone will have a specific response to that, but that doesn't make it a good song. Also, is every song written outside of 4/4 automatically bad? Because according to your rules it would be.
I think it's wrong to try to make a science out of music. I believe you said it best yourself:
Yeah, a song can be a massive hit and suck. When how strictly a song follows the rules and how well it is received by the public have virtually no relation, why bother following the rules? I agree that for some types of music it's important to use your rule set as pretty strict guidelines (for example most types of EDM) but for most of the most popular types of music today (hip hop, rap, pop, metal) I would say these guidelines are much, much looser.
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I like off key songs and jaunty writing. I like stuff that makes me stop, pause, consider, and think. If everything obeyed the rules, then I would think nothing worthy of my calling "art."
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Though glad for the anti postmodernist beginning, I'm also not entirely sold for reasons that are too complicated for me to articulate effectively at this point in time.
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Yeah seriously Fuck postmodernism
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On December 19 2010 14:17 phosphorylation wrote: Maybe the rules shoudl be to disallow posting youtube videos without having a substantial amount of text to accompany it. The thread can be sustained by posting any articles regarding classical music and consistent posting up analysis of anything relevant (performance, composition, theory) to jump start discussion. Could be very interseting. i wouldnt mind it, i'm just too lazy to make a good OP
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The thing is, his arguments against postmodernism comes entirely from his own absurdly reductionist beliefs that he doesn't really accomplish anything but reveal that he's just another one of those people that have no idea what they're talking about but still think they have everything figured out.
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I think I've tried to respond to the modernist comment like six times now and deleted it every time. There really isn't a good way to argue about art. All I can say is that modernism/post-modernism is one of the most important movements in art to ever take place. It's been incredibly liberating and allowed creators to invoke feelings which in the past would have been considered out of the realm of art. Imagine not being able to describe the gritty details of war, imagine where we'd be if war poets had never done that. That was art before modernism. Romantic poems about failed love and clouds and personal regrets. And before the romanticists, political poems that always tried to teach a lesson and never talked about the poet's feelings. Shifts in music have been similar.
One of the things modernism has really done for art is being able to express psychological disorders like PTSD and schizophrenia... If everything were nice and pleasing and obeyed the rules, it'd be really difficult to express that kind of stuff. But by being allowed to make jumps and sharp, unpleasant sounds, you can get a sense of stuff like that so much better.
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On December 19 2010 14:51 koreasilver wrote: The thing is, his arguments against postmodernism comes entirely from his own absurdly reductionist beliefs that he doesn't really accomplish anything but reveal that he's just another one of those people that have no idea what they're talking about but still think they have everything figured out.
On December 19 2010 15:07 Chef wrote: I think I've tried to respond to the modernist comment like six times now and deleted it every time. There really isn't a good way to argue about art. All I can say is that modernism/post-modernism is one of the most important movements in art to ever take place. It's been incredibly liberating and allowed creators to invoke feelings which in the past would have been considered out of the realm of art. Imagine not being able to describe the gritty details of war, imagine where we'd be if war poets had never done that. That was art before modernism. Romantic poems about failed love and clouds and personal regrets. And before the romanticists, political poems that always tried to teach a lesson and never talked about the poet's feelings. Shifts in music have been similar.
One of the things modernism has really done for art is being able to express psychological disorders like PTSD and schizophrenia... If everything were nice and pleasing and obeyed the rules, it'd be really difficult to express that kind of stuff. But by being allowed to make jumps and sharp, unpleasant sounds, you can get a sense of stuff like that so much better. You two have pretty much nailed my grief with the OP. While it's evident he has some basic interpretation derived from some introductory music theory (whoop overloading large words), his opinion is quite closed minded - sometimes, even dissonant composed quarter tone music for me can speak so much in words with so much colour, even if it isn't as closely adhered to the set rules of music as laid out by the OP - or, in other words, tonal, semi tone music isn't the only kind of music that exists.
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I feel like he is not arguing against postmodern music, per say (I doubt he is even knowledgeable about postmodern art). Instead, he is attempting to argue against postmodern conditoin or "attitude," which I do agree with. Of course, his arguments are not entirely convincing.
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On December 19 2010 15:07 Chef wrote: I think I've tried to respond to the modernist comment like six times now and deleted it every time. There really isn't a good way to argue about art. All I can say is that modernism/post-modernism is one of the most important movements in art to ever take place. It's been incredibly liberating and allowed creators to invoke feelings which in the past would have been considered out of the realm of art. Imagine not being able to describe the gritty details of war, imagine where we'd be if war poets had never done that. That was art before modernism. Romantic poems about failed love and clouds and personal regrets. And before the romanticists, political poems that always tried to teach a lesson and never talked about the poet's feelings. Shifts in music have been similar.
One of the things modernism has really done for art is being able to express psychological disorders like PTSD and schizophrenia... If everything were nice and pleasing and obeyed the rules, it'd be really difficult to express that kind of stuff. But by being allowed to make jumps and sharp, unpleasant sounds, you can get a sense of stuff like that so much better.
Broadly speaking, modernism may be the most cold, unfeeling art movement. Its innovations are formal more than anything - e.g., twelve-tone composition, T.S. Eliot's 'object correlative', Dadaist self-consciousness, Cubism's many perspectives, the Crystal Goblet and grids and gestalt theory in de Stijl, all drawing upon and eviscerating the higher artistic subjects of the past - and mainly addressed, responded to, and concerned itself with 'high' art. The appropriation of modernist forms and the collapsing of high into low, further complicating the issue through the introduction of new perspectives, is what typifies postmodernism. What distinguishes modernism from postmodernism and both from (I guess) not-modern (and whether or not they're finite terms, whether modernism or postmodernism are states of mind) is open for debate. Like most, I will likely not attempt to make that distinction wholesale.
I will note that the hierarchy presumed upon for 'classical' forms of music that was maintained by Cage, Stockhausen, or Schoenberg was nearly destroyed by postmodernism in music, which to me takes hold with the Beatles, who were often collapsing Stockhausen, skiffle, and Phil Spector together, sometimes in the same song, and yet could not read sheet music. I think this is what bothers other people about the notion of 'postmodern' music? That it's somehow cheapened the art? Not unlike the change in purified imperative to form and scholarship some glorify in the evolution from romantic poetry (which is definitely not all about "failed love and clouds and personal regrets," man), frothing in an aggressive boil-over in modernist poetry (e.g. Ezra Pound's Cantos), and then evaporating outright in postmodern poetry, which some consider lazy or obscure or asinine or all in the above. This perceived cheapening or deadening of the art leads some (I guess?) to deem it artless and then vie for the past (which 'postmodern' 'Continental' philosophy has some opinions about, lemme tell you).
I don't particularly agree with this position, but I like Frank O'Hara more than Samuel Taylor Coleridge (and I like Samuel Taylor Coleridge more than Ginsberg), just the same way that I would rather listen to disco than Mozart.
Though Mozart's got some good tracks, man.
I just can't dance to him.
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