First off, Jared, I mentioned the underlying classicism of all music at least a dozen times in this thread.

Secondly, this thread is about advancing classical music. There is nothing to disagree with there. If you don't like the notion, don't participate, just as I don't horn in when players are discussing certain composers whose music I detest.

You do not speak for the many theorists who take this matter seriously and follow it closely. You also do not speak for those for whom technique is of great interest. You may not like the technical aspect as though "you're writing down physics problems", but if it strikes you that way, don't participate. All you end up doing is derailing the thread and annoying me.

I simply disagree with the barrier between "art" and "commercial" music. I think that the existence of that perceived barrier is the cause of many of the problems you're bringing up. I would love to discuss this, if that isn't too much of a digression for your thread. I feel that the opinions I gave were very much relevant to your topic and non-derailing. I have re-read all of what you wrote so many times that I don't think I could possibly understand your purpose more clearly without swapping brains with you. I disagree with you on a couple core things, and beyond that, you and I are really fighting the same battle. This grumpiness is stupid.

Watch out for trolls, even in places like this.

There is and always has been a barrier between art music and commercial music, Jared. Musicians have always been aware of it, and it is not merely a matter of perception.

In fact, musicians periodically fight back. Some notable examples in the jazz world alone are Edward Kennedy (Duke) Ellington, Artie Shaw, John Burks (Dizzy) Gillespe, Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Dave Brubeck, and many others.

In the Lower Mainland, British Columbia, Canada, the Punk/New Wave/Indie movements in the late 70's, early 80's were a rebellion against commercial control and commercial music. Many pioneers from that period are still very active today.

The main difference between art music and commercial music is that art music represents musical and artistic values, whereas commercial music is controlled by people who don't know anything about music and don't care, and the music is ephemeral product.

What I mean by the latter can best be summed up by my own personal experiences in the publishing industry. This is where the standard novel format (50,000 to 55,000 words, an average of 10 chapters at around 5000 words per chapter) is still the norm. Some notable examples include Harlequin Romance, Harlequin Presents, crime fiction published by Black Dagger Publications, and many others. When you write fiction of this type, you're given strict guidelines which prevent you from producing a work of lasting value. What they want is high turnover, something cheap that will be read once and thrown away, like a Bic lighter.

In the commercial world (and I know this from many years of personal experience- I've owned two music studios over the years and produced a good many commercials for radio and television), you always have someone breathing down your neck, telling you what to do. Your creative output is relegated to trying to inject some level of intelligence into the music despite these clowns and their continual interference. That's a far cry from being able to expend all of your energies on a work of quality.

Gsmonks - I agree with you. I have had much different experiences in the past that have consequently shaped my opinions differently than yours. All I will add is that although the difference you mention is definitely present, it's not nearly as stark as you make it sound. There's almost nothing but gray area; there's virtually no "purely art" music or "purely commercial" music by the -and I admit- wonderful definitions you give. Most music comes from some sort of mix. Also, even if one is to try to avoid commercial mass-production bullcrap, that doesn't necessarily mean that the musician in question is then forced to utilize primarily technical means of producing artistic music. I would argue that most of the mass-produced pop music is sadly and pitifully lacking in emotion and depth. I love Rachmaninov's first Symphony because it wrenches my emotions first, and makes me think second. I laugh at the lack of feeling in Justin Bieber's cookie-cutter scripted music. What I'm saying is, trying to advance new ideas in artistic or "classical" music doesn't mean you must neglect the use of emotion as a primary means of composition.

Thanks Eweiss!

Well witty isn't too bad gsmonks. I can live with that.

Yeah, like the popular music of George Gershwin, Scott Joplin, and Percy Granger - to mention a few.

John

I don't know anything about Percy Granger, but the Gershwins and Joplin were fortunate to be alive at a time when art music was the popular music of the day. Caruso was one of the popular favourites in the world of 78 rpm records, Paul Whiteman's orchestra was producing popular jazz classics in the 1920's, and Tin Pan Alley was populated with ex-patriot European classical musicians and composers who produced some of the great music of the early 20th century, which today is seen as a Golden Age of popular music. John Philip Sousa was selling a lot of records at the time, Richard Strauss, Rachmaninoff, Khatchaturian, Stravinsky, Hindemith, Holst, Shostakovich and a host of other classical composers and performers were very much alive and well. The American Novel was in its heyday, Picasso and many other famous artists were very much alive and active, Existentialism and its thinkers were well under way, the big newspapers were thriving, the car industry was exploding, and the world was enjoying an unprecedented period of economic wealth.

It amazes me how quickly others can judge someone else's music yet have nothing to show of their own. BTW, it is original. You may not like it, but it's something that's never existed before - therefore original.

Thanks eweiss! And that's more in line with my definition of originality.

John

"I don't know anything about Percy Granger" - gsmonks

Born late 19th century - died 1961. One hell of a pianist. His music was frowned on by the classical elite of the day - mainly because his music was popular. Of course today his music is well respected even by the snobbiest of the classical snobbery.

You can see him play live here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5d53hnXvmA

John

Um . . . guys . . . if you check, you'll see that I've placed four books of my piano music for free download on this site. And that 196 pages is just a collection of my "guilty pleasure" music, written on the side.

So . . . I have plenty to show of my own. Plus I've been teaching composition for over 30 years. So I a) know what I'm talking about, and b) am not just some kid talking through my hat.

Okay, now this is some tasty technique:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDosOA7ru9E&NR=1

I love learning new stuff! Thanks, John!

BTW, guys, I wasn't being critical- I was making an observation.
Here's another: the type of originality you're referring to reminds me very much of David Wisdom's old CBC radio show Brave New Waves. He would play music written by young guys on their 4-track portastudios, and some of it was very interesting. David would talk at great length about how original the music was.

However, while the music was original to the young guys sending it in, it was nothing we hadn't heard a bazillion times before. Having played in Punk and New Wave bands myself in the 1970's, I'd heard this same music two decades before.

The mere mention of genuine originality is something that seems to get up the nose of young musicians these days. Instead of paying their dues and doing many years of hard work in order to achieve genuine originality, they tend to shoot the messenger instead, and try to claim that originality is whatever they feel like dubbing "originality".

However, as I and a host of others have said before me, you can't argue with or deny four-hundred years of accumulated knowledge and experience. You can thumb your nose at it all you like, but you're not accomplishing anything useful.

I guess we should come up with an ironclad definition of originality. Though we could never find one we all agreed on.

Ans: something original, e.g. a new idea or approach. Peculiar Nightmare would fall into "new approach" at the very least.

Synonyms: novelty, uniqueness, inventiveness, innovativeness, creative, freshness, imagination, ingenuity - again, would fit into some of those synonyms.

John

Yes, Percy Grainger was quite a musician. Quite a personality too.

A touch of the Alzheimer's or are you just attempting to increase your post count for some reason? I thought you said you were out of here.

I still don't understand this "guilty pleasure" concept. Why does the creation of ANY type of music have to make you feel guilty? Just because you aren't breaking new ground doesn't mean you aren't creating something legitimate enough to feel proud of rather than guilty.

I still defend my position that it is impossible to create 100% original music. If you are making music at all, you are inevitably creating organized sound, which has been done before. Simply by calling your creation "music," you forfeit total originality. There is no black and white here, but rather degrees of originality, which are obviously quite subjective. As Johnny-Boy said, a standard can't really be established on such an opinion-driven issue. You can't call one piece of music entirely original and another piece of music completely non-original.

In my experience, artists who strive for absolute originality often make the worst (my opinion) art. Don't be afraid to look backwards occasionally in the pursuit of progress.

This isn't a post. It's abuse, and therefore will be reported to the mods.

A guilty pleasure is the enjoyment of something you shouldn't like. For example, I like old-time fiddle music despite the fact that I'm a classically-trained musician.

Dunno why you can't wrap your head around the notion. It's pretty much universal.

No one ever said anything about any music that is 100% original. By "original", we're talking "new", not "100%" original, and by "new" it is meant that a new range of expression has been brought to the table. Bach counterpoint with its liberal use of dissonance brought a new musical vocabulary to the table. Chromaticism brought a new musical vocabulary to the table. Serialism brought a new musical vocabulary to the table. Bitonality brought a new musical vocabulary to the table. And so on.

Which reminds me, someone earlier in this thread made some disparaging remarks about serialism. I was going to remind that poster that Also Sprach Zarathustra by Richard Strauss is a serial composition in the section leading up to the conclusion of the 1st half of the piece.

gsmonks - so, by that rationale, a heavy metal guitarist who secretly enjoys Bach's inventions would also have a "guilty pleasure" ...? Seems like an inappropriate term to apply "universally." There's nothing guilty about enjoying a variety of music.

Speaking of Heavy Metal... Would you not also consider the New Wave of American Heavy Metal to be groundbreaking? With it came a flood of fresh ideas and new, original sounds. 100% original? Gosh no. It built heavily on its predecessors, like all other forms of music. But it also fits in that list you wrote... Which unsurprisingly only included explicitly "art music" advancements. But you yourself said that classicism is an underlying feature of all progression in music.

For the record, I strongly dislike serialism. I find it pretentious and utterly devoid of feeling. Schoenberg is without a doubt one of my least favorite composers, and I honestly cannot find any enjoyment in his twelve tone technique. I'd love to find an exception to this! But I have not yet. However, in general I love the use of chromaticism. It adds an entirely new range of color to diatonic music. But that opens a new can of worms - what about semitones? What about cultural music OTHER than just European tonality?

Lots of Heavy Metal music has been groundbreaking. In fact, of all the pop forms, Heavy Metal is one of the most highly regarded by classical and jazz musicians. It's a form that always seems to have attracted innovators. When you have classical and jazz composers and arrangers paying attention to your arrangements and voicings in order to enhance their own music, then you know you've done something right.

Well, Jared, if you like Also Sprach Zarathustra, then you like serialism. It just means that you dislike certain types of serialism. I personally really like pure serialism, so pure serialism (like anything else) is a matter of taste.

As far as other forms of music goes, that's not part of the discussion. The discussion is about the Western classical musical tradition. While I realise that composers such as Darius Milhaud (a student of Debussy) was an advocate of travelling the world in order to explore other cultures and their music, there is a limit as to what Western music can reasonably be asked to assimilate. Attempts have been made in various such directions, but they often involve the assimilation of other tuning methods, which many Western instruments are not equipped to do.

Quarter-tone instruments are available (voice, the strings and trombones have nothing to worry about in this department), and a fair number of classical musicians own them (a friend of mine back in university owned a quarter-tone flugelhorn, for example), and strings, trombones and voice can handle third-tone music as well, but music exploring these areas has always been restricted to a handful of novel curiosities.

Here's some Arnold I just love:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysBsvEBGXXQ

I think it's because it's far from being nice. Naming something 'guilty pleasure' puts automatically a lower value to it. I mean if I go, in this very forum, "My guilty pleasure is listening to Chopin works", I think I'll get flammed, banned, beaten up, etc! This is how this term is applied in all honesty!

Now, on exploring new grounds. Sure explore. I've done so for the most part of my (somewhat short I'll admit) life. But in the end what is also important in music is communication: With the performers, the audience and the other composers alike! It's crucial I'd say and it's something that people, especially students tend to forget!

Totally unique, and totally new in aesthetics is non existant. In techniques it can be found however. And I do feel that a composers job is not to rearrange conviniently other peoples techniques but create their own along the way.

I always think of composers as “arrangers” of music rather than composers of music (creators). We arrange the 12 half-tones and their octaves in infinite ways (melodically & rhythmically). God is the only creator. He gave us the raw materials.

One attribute of composing that stands out among the great composers is a signature in all their work. When one hears a piece by Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, Gershwin, etc., there is automatic recognition of that composer.

I tend to reside in the Romantic Era in much of my music – though only by emotional default. To say one Romantic Era composer is more original than another is nonsensical. The idea of giving more status/credibility to music being composed using new/newer “systems” is a poor process of appraising music. “New” for newness sake is irrelevant and so confining. I’d much rather compose from a free heart, than to be confined to some original, restricted system (though I'm restricted by my emotions).

Pertaining to originality… by using the new/original “system” means of appraising music, most music would have to be deemed unoriginal. We would only need Scott Joplin’s first piano rag, Chopin’s first waltz, Haydn’s first symphony, etc. – because the following works by these composers would no longer be original, since they’re based on a previous work/system of that composer.

We all use accumulated knowledge from the past. All the great composers were influenced by past accomplishments of others. The writing down of ideas to be passed on to future generations is man’s greatest achievement. If not for this, music would still exist only in the most primitive form.

My idea of good/great music is music that touches my heart and emotions (using any system). The method I use to determine originality is whether I can identify the piece as having already been composed (to my knowledge “Peculiar Nightmare” hasn’t been). No way of knowing that for sure, because of every composer we’re familiar with, there are thousands of other composers we’ll never hear.

So I stand by my signature 100%.

Yes, well, this thread is about advancing Western music. How many times do I have to repeat that? If you don't like rock 'n' roll, you don't go to a rock concert to complain about it. Similarly with this thread. It's about finding ways to advance Western music. If you're not talking about ways to advance Western music, you're cross-talking and derailing the thread.

Another little advance I came up with is a serial form that doesn't use a 12-tone row. I've come up with a number of formulas for coming up with tone rows of absolutely any length (which is a limitation I don't care for in serialism). The trick is to avoid patterns you'll come across in tonality. I altered this characteristic to accommodate rows which move in tonal fashion for a few notes at a time, but not long enough to establish tonality over all.

BTW- Johnny Boy, what sound-generating contraption(s) were you using in Peculiar Nightmare? The strings sound mighty nice!

Western music? Rock 'n' Roll is Western music. If you're referring to Western "Classical" music, then define your meaning of "Classical". Some use the term classical in referring to serious music in general. If you're referring to music in the Classical period - it can't be advanced because that Era is past.

I'm guessing you mean "serious" music as opposed to popular music, though some serious music is also popular - and some popular music is serious. I'm not trying to be a wise guy gsmonks - really. I think you have to define your meaning of Western music.

BTW, the violin sound comes from the Kirk Hunter sample collection. I'm using Logic Pro as my DAW.

John

"Serial form that doesn't use a 12-tone row" gsmonks

I would find composing from such formulas to be very distracting and lifeless. Maybe you could post an example.

John

Building on what John said, gsmonks, you never mentioned the advancement of Western Classical music specifically in your original post. "Western Music" encompasses a massive variety of styles, all built around the 12 pitch system. You failed to define exactly what you meant by western music. This wouldn't be a problem if it wasn't for the fact that you seem so upset that we are "derailing" your thread with music that isn't explicitly "Western Artistic" in nature. Classical is a misnomer because it implies a past time period. If you want to box yourself in to nothing but western artistic music, that's fine, but again that is not a very progressive way to view music overall.

Read the header- Exploring New Ground.

Read the heading of the section- Composer's Lounge

Read the posts- we're dealing mainly with classical music.

Western Music is a term that encompasses music which uses the same devices used in classical music.

"Classical music" covers everything from Leoninus & Perotinus to Ligeti and the present day. If you don't understand what category Palestrina, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Berlioz, Debussy and Ligeti collectively fall into, then there's nothing I can do to help you.

I don't need to restate what this thread is about. If talk about serialism, Bach counterpoint and bi-tonality hasn't sunk in by now, you have serious problems with basic comprehension, either from ADD, ADHD, stupidity, or a desire to be annoying, the latter of which seems self-evident.

I don't have the equipment (yet) to post examples, Johnny Boy. I asked how you guys inserted YouTube into these posts and no one deigned to reply. If you've checked out my books of "guilty pleasure" piano music, you'll see that they were done with pen, ink & manuscript paper. In my music room there are two pianos, a lot of brass instruments, several stringed instruments, a clarinet, a few pieces of percussion, several music stands, two filing cabinets full of music, a bunch of folded-up cardboard bandstands, and this computer, which is strategically placed in front of the window. Oh, yes, and a wooden wind-up metronome, and a vase with several pens, pencils and baton handles sticking out of it, sitting on top of a pile of blank manuscript paper.

Regardless, did you listen to the Schoenburg symphony (about 7 posts back)? If that's "distracting and lifeless" music, then I'm an aardvark.

I really don't think you guys are the least bit interested in this thread, which causes me to wonder why you keep posting in it?

Here's the most well-known piece of serial music ever written:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5YSgPZ-OK4&feature=fvsr

Many millions of people who were young in 1964 can whistle this piece. In fact, we used to play this in band when I was young, just as The Simpson's theme by Danny Elfman was played by many a school band in the 1990's.