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ratsrcute

It reads as though you're looking for a theory of music that isn't argued in musical terms. I believe it's more instructive and enlightening to use musical language -- and the language of music -- to discover what makes music tick. I reckon you're eschewing those things in order to talk about music...

ratsrcute

I think you are getting the idea I don't want to talk about specific musical items because I am not giving specific examples. But of course I want to analyze musical things. I'm working on finishing up a set of eight "inventions" roughly in the style of Bach, which demonstrate how I put all these ab...

ratsrcute

At the risk of being presumptuous, it reads as though you're falling into the "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing" trap. An artist like Beth (presumably) knows all of the fundamentals and can catalog the hell out of colors, shapes, perspective, etc. So just because your first "lessons" with he...

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I've dropped out of this but will answer since you specifically refer to me. John F dismissed the idea of studying contrasts by saying "it was my personal intuition," and I pointed out that good music (as opposed to computerized pastiche) is essentially NOTHING BUT a bunch of people's personal intu...

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Oh about the question about how two Mozart movements contrast. I tried to explain this a few posts back but it didn't seem that anyone noticed. I don't think there is necessarily a single, final answer. I also don't mean to make an argument that a particular movement is the *best of all possible con...

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Hi Garret - I am sensitive to the fact you don't want to be drawn into a long discussion, but I wanted to clarify a couple things. I fundamentally agree with you! So hopefully you won't feel I am attacking or disagreeing with you and won't feel a need to respond at length. I think that I have been m...

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IcedNote wrote:Man, I sure wish I had enough patience to dive into this thread and actually take the time to type out my thoughts in a cohesive fashion. Alas...

Carry on,

-G

I'd be interested in your thoughts even if you can only type them in a non-cohesive fashion.

Mike

ratsrcute

John, you are the one defining "adequately," so it is you who has decided no one has given an adequate answer. You are disparaging toward intuition. You just don't get it. Musicians work by intuition. I'd like to know if there is a single performing musician or active composer who is disparaging of ...

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<< why does the middle movement of a Mozart piano concerto act as the perfect foil to the first movement? >> That was Mozart's secret, and nobody knows the answer. Not even Charles Rosen in "The Classical Style," which goes more deeply into its subject than any other book in English I know. Those m...

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Here's how I think of music theory. I dislike much traditional theory, which I call "cataloging." To my way of thinking this obscures things that are more fundamental. You certainly start the most interesting threads on this forum. I admire the way you grapple with big ideas, even if they escape yo...

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John F -- Let's leave aside the word "analysis" (which I believe you brought into the discussion when you said Beth was conveying concepts useful for analyzing existing art) -- let's say we are talking about "pattern recognition." If we look at an action painting by Jackson Pollock, we may see numer...

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John, we do see things differently as usual, but I always appreciate your consideration. Understand that I don't claim to have an absolute perspective on these matters, but I have been having some lively dialogues, with very clear communication, about these ideas with several musicians as well as a ...

ratsrcute

I had an interesting experience today, involving parallels between music theory, visual art theory, and film theory. Recently I hired a "professional organizer," a young woman named Beth who has worked in cinematography but has chosen to make a primary career out of helping people organize, downsize...

ratsrcute

(9/26 edited for clarity/brevity) John F, you have said often that my concepts are “fuzzy” and “subjective.” You are right in some ways, but I also think that “fuzzy” concepts are useful in understanding music. Here are some thoughts about the difference, as I see it, between “the concrete” and “the...

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Yikes. I was talking about a specific performance, not Mozart's notes themselves. For any given performances, I generally have a sense of whether it "works," whether it brings out the potential in Mozart's composition. Of course, I cannot say whether it works for anyone else. I love the Brendel/Marr...

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I am getting more self-aware, and I am realizing more and more that certain ways I have of describing what I like in classical music are perceived by people as me being self-centered and arrogant, even when I mean to describe an opinion . One issue is that I use the word "principle." For instance, s...

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Your commitment to this is admirable, but Bach along with two other composers is as close to godhood as humankind will ever attain. Here is his greatest work based on a chorale, which I bet you have never heard before. I will listen to the YouTube thing later tonight. I am not sure what you are res...

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I have posted here several times in the past couple of months which probably looked like pronouncements about music in general. I'm changing my tune. My goal as a composer should be to understand how to write music that I like , and to that end I should analyze compositions and learn about what patt...

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I live next door to Saratoga, and the answer is clear. Outdoor performances cannot be done acoustically. It's as simple as that. If "acoustically" means with good audio quality, that is simply wrong. The BPO outdoor concert is simple evidence of that; you don't receive standing ovations with bad au...

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I live next door to Saratoga, and the answer is clear. Outdoor performances cannot be done acoustically. It's as simple as that. If "acoustically" means with good audio quality, that is simply wrong. The BPO outdoor concert is simple evidence of that; you don't receive standing ovations with bad au...

ratsrcute

Not to get into detail, but I had a rough childhood. I have a lot of progress healing psychologically, and music is essential, both listening and composing. Except that I do not compose, welcome to the club. Thanks for the welcome! Isn't music great? The way it can transform my perspective, and hop...

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I didn't listen to KUSC early this morning, but notice Albinoni plus a number of composers I've never heard of which are probably classical period because their works are described as "Concertos in C" or whatever. I'm not tremendously fond of Albinoni but that's more because his music is predictable...

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I mostly hear those pieces on KUSC, maybe late at night, or maybe on their "Modern Times" Saturday night program, and don't make an effort to remember the titles or composers. I like a lot of modern music, but not too fond of most of what Alan Chapman chooses, but anyway I would rather focus on mus...

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I really dislike music that just seems to be shooting from the hip. I dislike the latter music so much I seem to have lost touch with any perspective from which it can be enjoyable. Just curious-could you give any examples of that kind of music? Regards, Len I mostly hear those pieces on KUSC, mayb...

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Not to get into detail, but I had a rough childhood. I have a lot of progress healing psychologically, and music is essential, both listening and composing. Some people describe the healing effects of expressing their feelings. That's part of it, but as I understand my feelings about music more and ...

ratsrcute

Speaking of big picture, I'll summarize this thread. I'm wondering which part John agrees with. So, a band named Spirit claims that Led Zeppelin's song "Stairway To Heaven" was plagiarism. Specifically, the famous opening guitar passage was stolen from Spirit's song named "Taurus." My first post cla...

ratsrcute

John, I am glad you gave this information and I don't think I disagree with you. First let me just say that in the big picture, context is always important to how something is perceived. That's just a reality of perception. How you perceive movement 2 depends on what happened in movement 1, even if ...

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Sorry, I should have said that some plagiarism lawsuits are stupid, but not all of them are--probably most are justified. But the "Stairway to Heaven" lawsuit is clearly stupid. That is the interesting recent event. John, quoting another composer is still adapting. Look at the big picture: the quote...

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That's very interesting that you noticed the kind of satisfaction you found in other creative activities. You know, life is a journey, and maybe it's easy to get a fixed notion of what that journey entails. But I have found that the journey stalls until I am ready for it to go in an unexpected direc...

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A few years back, a lawsuit was initiated against Led Zeppelin accusing them of stealing the opening guitar riff of "Stairway to Heaven" from another song called "Taurus" as written by a band called Spirit. That lawsuit just concluded, and Led Zeppelin successfully defended themselves. https://www.t...

ratsrcute

some guy, if you want to troll people successfully, you have to get a lot less obvious about it. cheers

ratsrcute

Alright, so we've got some disagreement. Just about any statement I make here is an opinion. I think that was clear in my comment on Copland, Vaughan Williams, and Britten. That means anyone is free to disagree and it won't upset me. And I would hope my comments don't upset anyone else, although per...

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By the way, John, I don't think any musician thinks everything they do is of equal quality. A pianist I know likes to record himself in concert, and then a few months later he comes back to the recording and decides if it's good. There is no reason to think ANY composer views all their work as equal...

ratsrcute

John, I didn't use the words "inadequate," "defective," etc. You introduced those words. I never said the technique was "bad." Techniques comes in all shapes and sizes. You seem to believe that musical phenomena are either objective (such as technique), or "just feelings" with a kind of deprecating ...

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Some composers have uneven technique but they have a feeling quality that is just magical and I would never want to be without them. I put Britten, Vaughn Williams, and Copland in this category. What do you mean, "uneven technique"? Britten lacked nothing in compositional technique, and I find no s...

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Some composers have uneven technique but they have a feeling quality that is just magical and I would never want to be without them. I put Britten, Vaughn Williams, and Copland in this category.

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Speaking of composers who did their best work in the violin concerto form, I am greatly moved by the Barber Violin Concerto--I don't really have the experience with Barber to say it's his "very best" but it has some amazing Romantic themes, truly amazing. Modernistfan, just in case you were wonderin...

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I notice some differences in performers with regard to their "relationship" to the music in the act of performing. These describe subjective experiences and may not be strictly objectively accurate. Some performances--and I mean rehearsed, recorded performances--sound almost improvisatory, as throug...

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Not my favorite Violin Concerto, but quite typical of Adams's style. I give the work 3 stars. Good, but not great. Regards, Mel 8) Well, it's not typical of his pre-1995 style. Like Harmonielehre or Nixon in China. I recall that he wrote the violin concerto in the late 90's and it sounds like he wa...

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Just listened to a recording of the John Adams violin concerto with Gidon Kremer and Kent Nagano. My opinion is--yuck. Just yuck. This piece is interesting because it represents Adams moving beyond his trademark minimalist techniques in both rhythm and--especially--harmonic vocabulary. I'll comment ...

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To maestrob and Heck148, There are no principles that operate alone in making art. That's why I paired "balance" and "going for it." I wanted to keep my post short and give a flavor of my thinking, including the idea that principles sometimes contradict each other. How do you choose a principle to a...

ratsrcute

John, I value your contributions tremendously, and I'm glad you posted that link to the Richter performance. I don't mind explaining further if you happen to be interested in any of these ideas, but otherwise we can leave it at that. The one idea I will revisit now (not that you have to respond) is ...

ratsrcute

Update: I listened to the whole Richter performance. It grew on me! Fabulous on the whole! But I heard "balance" all the way through. He is always choosing how loud, how fast, how to make contrasts, how to voice the texture, how to accent notes, etc. Getting all these notes to sound good together is...

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John, I think you are looking at this like a listener, while I am talking about my experience as a composer who likes to take things apart and see what makes them tick. (As well as work from my gut.) The principle of balance is very much at work in Beethoven's notes and rhythms. I listened to the fi...

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Nice. Beethoven was good at "going for it." Earlier composers might have said his music was lacking in balance and restraint, but balance is relative, within a context. Beethoven's music has a logic and coherence which he implements with aplomb. Maybe the endings of The Eroica and Symphony 5 are a b...

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Making an observation as a listener to classical music and composer: I like "balance," but I think the musician should also "go for it." "Balance" is a principle found in many philosophies, as well as Eastern religions. It could also be called the "Goldilocks principle": not too hot, not too cold, b...

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Like Bach was into numerology and no one ever says that that compromised his music. But back in the 90's there were articles panning atonality and 12-tone stuff, and I saw an online forum where one person dismissed Schoenberg's 12-tone stuff entirely on the basis it was driven by triskaidekaphobia....

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Let me be clear about one thing--I am sure that composing was a good thing for Schoenberg to have in this life. I think his life was probably enriched, and suffering diminished because he had that outlet. (As is true for many composers and artists.) So I'm not saying I think his music is simply "tr...

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I own several good recordings of the Piano Concerto and the Variations for Orchestra. I've listened at regular intervals over the past ten years to see if my feelings have changed about them. I always hear the mastery, in fact as I learn about music in general Schoenberg seems more and more masterfu...

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It's a technique, not a gimmick. Mere gimmicks don't produce masterpieces, and a few twelve-tone works like Berg's violin concerto are widely acknowledged as masterpieces, nor I should think do they attract famous composers like Stravinsky and Copland to use them late in life. The emperor's new clo...

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