Almost 30 members. it's getting busy here. I can't possibly remember all the names, let alone the things they stand for. Maybe I should put their photos on a whiteboard, like detectives do when they're trying to solve a crime. I will make notes like "intellectual, proceed with caution" or "music too good, probably stolen" and draw a line between the notes and the photos with a red marker. It's almost like Cluedo. Who is most likely to kill the forum?
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I use imitations in all my works. I try to make listening as easy as possible for the audience. I mean, they might have a difficult job, or a nagging wife, or an abusive husband at home. There's no need to bother them when they're out for the evening. That's why I find some composers of contemporary music so arrogant. Like their thoughts and ideas are that interesting.
I think I'm going to hide behind a tree now.
Audience alienation is definitely a recurring problem in modern works. But OTOH some works just aren't meant for popular consumption. And some popular works may not actually appeal to some.
Generally I prefer tonal works, but I also tend to avoid many popular works. I have found that many popular people works don't appeal to me, and many works I admire seem to be unpopular for some reason.
I guess there's really no accounting for taste, as they say.
My own works are really composed for myself first of all; the fact that some of them may appeal to others is a bonus but not a necessary quality for me.
as long as you don't hide up a tree (especially a pear tree, hint hint) as it might get chopped down
I'm rather pleased that music has moved on beyond the 18th and 19thC, it simply could not progress and be relevant without new technical and compositional paradigms. Like Teoh suggests, there is music for entertainment and immediate consumption and there is music that aspires to more than appealing to popularity. Music in the last 100 years or so has achieved a wide aesthetic and expressive depth due to an expanded language.
Yes, but you're not supposed to leave the public behind.
Well if you are talking about bitonality, atonality, serialism, spectralism and any other genres that require work from a listener in order to gain an appreciation, then there actually is a sizeable audience for the new in music who do listen and enjoy. That modernity or anything from the 20thC cf doesn't always appeal to lovers of the canon is irrelevant and popularity ratings are no measure of a pieces intrinsic worth. Music is not just about pretty tunes and immediate appeal, it is capable of other things too.
Rowy, you say, "I try to make listening as easy as possible for the audience. I mean, they might have a difficult job, or a nagging wife, or an abusive husband at home. There's no need to bother them when they're out for the evening."
To my mind, this psychology comes a bit close to the purpose of 'Muzak'. - To soothe. "...not to bother them". It's funny, but music your not supposed to think (too much) about reminds me of Nurse Rachet's playlist
. This has the opposite effect of 'soothing' to me. Just out of curiosity, what makes you think non-ruffling music is what the victim of an 'abusive husband' would want to hear. Maybe they'd want something more whacky and cathartic (like 20th century music)? Who really can say?
Wouldn't it be better (and maybe more vulnerably honest) to follow one's own convictions w/o concerning too much about the peanut gallery;:)
Although, to follow up, ENO turned this Muzak idea into a type of deep simplicity, and its desired effect, the still mind: for example a G7 chord that waves through for an hour in slow motion with heavy reverb.
Of course, these are just words, and hugely reductive, of course. Which reminds me of a quote from Shostokovich:
'In the long run, any words about music are less important than the music. Anyone who thinks otherwise is not worth talking to.'
But I must concede, that from roughly the 1920's on, there has been a severe break from modern composition and its audience, no doubt. Of course, there are reasons for this, WW1- perhaps part of the trigger.
Now, I'll run behind a piano. :)
The disconnect between composer and audience is a real problem. I don't think it's as simple as "audience wants Muzak, you're giving them Schoenberg in his full 12-tone glory". Clearly, there is an audience for the atonal stuff. Just as there's an audience for Muzak. And everything in between. The issue isn't so much what music is good for everyone -- I'm not sure there is anything that will please everyone. But more so in whether your particular audience is getting what they want. I'm not particularly inclined towards 12-tone music, for example, but I can't stand Muzak either. The kind of music I like is the kind with Beethovenian drama, over-the-top bombastic and unusually beautiful in ways that stand out from the crowd. See -- very specific preferences, which I'm certain will be very different for everyone else. It's also mood-dependent; sometimes I just want to relax with boring ol' Schubert, sometimes I want to be blown away by a bombastic Beethoven finale, sometimes I want to scream at the universe like a vehement Shostakovich symphony. And once in a rare while I might actually want a Wild Fugue to shake my world up. So how do you categorize me as part of your potential audience? I'm not sure there's any easy answer.
I remember being in a live concert because I liked a particular piece in the program -- but I remember the first 20 mins or so being a contemporary piece that I simply could not get into. Spent those 20 mins looking at my watch and wishing time would run faster so that it could get to the good part. That's a problem: the music isn't connecting with its audience -- at least, it didn't connect with me. It almost felt like it was imposed on me because I wanted to hear the other pieces in the program, but showing up late for the concert wasn't an option. (And besides, I didn't know what the first piece would be like -- it was a premier apparently, and who am I to say beforehand whether I might actually like it? Unfortunately I didn't.)
It's almost like we should stop pretending that "classical music" or "art music" or whatever you wanna call it, is still that one catch-all category that concerts play since historical times. The reality is that it has fragmented into all sorts of different subcategories, and its audience has also fragmented. Some audiences love being challenged by new, unusual music, some want the classics, some want something in-between, and there's no pleasing everybody. Perhaps it's time to acknowledge that we like different things, and have more targeted concerts rather than trying a one-size-fits-all that clearly isn't working. How that would actually work in practice, though, is anybody's guess.
I certainly think it's reductive to equate music which is easy to listen to, or doesn't require thought to enjoy, with music which can't contain passion and loss and joy and excitement and every other emotional state that's possible for music to bestow. I would class all my music as easy to listen to; that's a far cry from it being easy listening, and it certainly wasn't composed to offer a neutral safe state for an audience to float in.
Yes, of course. I certainly have heard your music and have enjoyed it very much, Dave.
I was saying (provocatively) that Rowy's definition came a bit close to a definition of Muzak. Just banter, really.
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