Looking back to an interesting and enlightening conversation I had with our dear friend Florestan I once said to him: "Neither piano nor guitar is more important than the other, and therefore the developments and people associated with them in the 19th century are of course all interesting and worthy of discussion," to which he graciously informed me: "Wrong! Dead wrong, actually! Piano music is much more important, and much more influential than, guitar music! You can twist your head as much as you want, this is a fact!"
I would like to open this up to a wider discussion to see if Florestan's indisputable fact can indeed be disputed. :)
(to be fair, I wasn't talking solely about repertoire, but Florestan brought up the topic of the repertoire itself as being more important)
Quote from: jessop on May 17, 2018, 06:24:31 PM
Looking back to an interesting and enlightening conversation I had with our dear friend Florestan I once said to him: "Neither piano nor guitar is more important than the other, and therefore the developments and people associated with them in the 19th century are of course all interesting and worthy of discussion," to which he graciously informed me: "Wrong! Dead wrong, actually! Piano music is much more important, and much more influential than, guitar music! You can twist your head as much as you want, this is a fact!"
I would like to open this up to a wider discussion to see if Florestan's indisputable fact can indeed be disputed. :)
(to be fair, I wasn't talking solely about repertoire, but Florestan brought up the topic of the repertoire itself as being more important)
Well, I can kind of see Florestan's point: look at all the composers who wrote for the piano versus the guitar. I'm not about to make the declamatory statement of one is more 'important' than the other, but it seems all of my favorite composers (w/ a few notable exceptions) all wrote piano music and didn't write one single piece for the guitar. So much of the classical guitar repertoire is attributed to Spanish composers anyway. Composers like Debussy, Stravinsky, Beethoven, Mozart, Bartók, Brahms, and so many others had no interest in guitar music. The guitar is a wonderful instrument (I've been playing this instrument for the last 24 years), but I won't lie and say that I seldom listen to guitar music and actually prefer the piano (and so many other instruments) to the guitar. I suppose that's why I felt the need to explore electric guitar and the use of effects to somehow emulate other instruments. Anyway, just my own two cents.
Quote from: Mirror Image on May 17, 2018, 08:32:00 PM
Well, I can kind of see Florestan's point: look at all the composers who wrote for the piano versus the guitar. I'm not about to make the declamatory statement of one is more 'important' than the other, but it seems all of my favorite composers (w/ a few notable exceptions) all wrote piano music and didn't write one single piece for the guitar. So much of the classical guitar repertoire is attributed to Spanish composers anyway. Composers like Debussy, Stravinsky, Beethoven, Mozart, Bartók, Brahms, and so many others had no interest in guitar music. The guitar is a wonderful instrument (I've been playing this instrument for the last 24 years), but I won't lie and say that I seldom listen to guitar music and actually prefer the piano (and so many other instruments) to the guitar. I suppose that's why I felt the need to explore electric guitar and the use of effects to somehow emulate other instruments. Anyway, just my own two cents.
Very true, however I would still say that the guitar has influenced music generally to a great degree (not limited to classical) just as piano has in a different way.
Certainly during the 19th/early 20th centuries, when classical music served the purposes of the middle class, middle-class people were more likely to have a piano in their house than a guitar. Nowadays it's the reverse, but also classical music no longer is useful or interesting to the middle class.
I think also even in the 19th century (and earlier) the guitar was more associated with popular music than classical music, and much popular music from the era has not survived to the present day.
None of this means piano music is "more important", only that we have more of it that has come down to us from history.
Canonically the keyboard family has attained far greater proximity to universality for the Western tradition of classical music, the guitar is far more a specialist instrument with a repertoire that is largely self-contained. In popular music, so far as universality is concerned, it is close to the opposite. Being a guitar player who started in rock music, I am well aware however that the wellspring of universality for the guitar in popular music lies in the ease with which one can memorise a stock of chords and perhaps a lead line or two—even "advanced" techniques of electric lead guitar can with daily practice be honed to a good standard in the space of a year or two of first picking up the instrument—and have that suffice for the creation of music which, by and large, will serve as a mere vehicle for lyrics. As an added bonus you can stand up while you play, unleashing your full expressive capability as you pout and do a few moves to the beat. In other words, it is not universal because it is versatile—it is versatile, but had you been exposed only to popular music, likely you would not know as much—but because it is easy to play sufficiently for popular applications. Both are greatly important to different musical traditions for very different reasons.
The capabilities of the guitar are extremely limited compared with the piano. It has a range of only 3 1/2 octaves with weak bass, it can only sound a maximum of 6 notes at once, the combinations of notes are severely restricted by the possible positions of the left hand on the fret-board. Counterpoint is almost impossible. There is simply no comparison between the capabilities of the two instruments. The main advantage of the guitar is that it can be played at a basic level with almost no skill and instruction.
I disown the formulation (and apologize) but I stand by the idea: while guitar is a wonderful instrument for which wonderful music has been written, when it comes to the development of classical music and the influence particular instruments had on it the piano is from another galaxy. That's why I say you can't compare Chopin to Mertz or Regondi, or rather you can but only at the level of the supreme technical and expressive mastery of their instruments; otherwise, the influence the former had on subsequent composers is huge and can hardly be overstated, while the latter two, for all their wonderful music (I have two discs worth of Mertz), are negligible with respect to influence.
The only advantage of guitar over piano is that you can put it in a case and travel comfortably with it in your back. That and its modest capability at polyphony (chords of more than two notes, a melody accompanied with a simple bass line,...) is the only reason why that ugly instrument got some popularity. As for driving music revolutions, call me when you can conceive and play something like Ravel's Jeux d'eau with it, or Ligeti's etudes...
Quote from: Crudblud on May 18, 2018, 05:58:18 AM
Canonically the keyboard family has attained far greater proximity to universality for the Western tradition of classical music, the guitar is far more a specialist instrument with a repertoire that is largely self-contained. In popular music, so far as universality is concerned, it is close to the opposite. Being a guitar player who started in rock music, I am well aware however that the wellspring of universality for the guitar in popular music lies in the ease with which one can memorise a stock of chords and perhaps a lead line or two—even "advanced" techniques of electric lead guitar can with daily practice be honed to a good standard in the space of a year or two of first picking up the instrument—and have that suffice for the creation of music which, by and large, will serve as a mere vehicle for lyrics. As an added bonus you can stand up while you play, unleashing your full expressive capability as you pout and do a few moves to the beat. In other words, it is not universal because it is versatile—it is versatile, but had you been exposed only to popular music, likely you would not know as much—but because it is easy to play sufficiently for popular applications. Both are greatly important to different musical traditions for very different reasons.
This seems like it makes the most sense to me. Perhaps western classical music has been so preoccupied with textures that have always been more suited to keyboard instruments, whereas the accessibility of guitar has lent itself more to popular genres.
Instruments (1) don't all come from the same culture and (2) don't all occupy the same place in culture.
I particularly like amw's observation. The place that the guitar now occupies in music is very different. But then the culture is different. The piano was king in a time and place when/where people sat down in drawing rooms to listen to music. Guitars are far better for outdoors, wandering the streets etc.
Quote from: Florestan on May 18, 2018, 09:28:08 AM
I disown the formulation (and apologize) but I stand by the idea: while guitar is a wonderful instrument for which wonderful music has been written, when it comes to the development of classical music and the influence particular instruments had on it the piano is from another galaxy. That's why I say you can't compare Chopin to Mertz or Regondi, or rather you can but only at the level of the supreme technical and expressive mastery of their instruments; otherwise, the influence the former had on subsequent composers is huge and can hardly be overstated, while the latter two, for all their wonderful music (I have two discs worth of Mertz), are negligible with respect to influence.
Bringing it back to the old discussion, I would say that we agree that the technical and expressive mastery of each composer for piano and guitar in the 19th century made a comparable mark on technical and expressive mastery for their respective instruments. I would go further to say that in some ways they also may have influenced the
build of their respective instruments as well, as piano did undergo many changes (as did guitar) in the 19th century. Perhaps guitar in the 20th century underwent even more changes when it had to accommodate to an increase in concert hall/recital repertoire and many more popular music styles.
Objectively, I think we would all have to admit that the pipe organ blows them all away, at very least in terms of range and power and tonal and expressive versatility. In terms of importance to the history of Western music, I would also agree that the piano is arguably more important than the guitar (and most other instruments), when you consider the repertoire (e.g., Beethoven sonatas, Haydn, Mozart, Chopin, Liszt, Brahms, Schumann, Schubert, Debussy, Bartok, etc.). However, I wonder whether there is an argument to be made that the pipe organ is even more important than the piano in this respect. When you consider that it is a far older instrument with centuries of repertoire more than the modern piano, I think there is a possible argument there--maybe not.
None of this is to say that one is BETTER than the other. I play the piano, but have no axes to grind about its importance--and if I had to start over, I would very likely choose the pipe organ/harpsichord instead. Personally, the guitar as a classical instrument does very little for me. As a jazz and pop instrument (ethnic music, Flamenco, etc), I find it much more appealing.
Quote from: XB-70 Valkyrie on May 23, 2018, 05:41:01 PM
Objectively, I think we would all have to admit that the pipe organ blows them all away, at very least in terms of range and power and tonal and expressive versatility.
I wouldn't say that.
Quote from: XB-70 Valkyrie on May 23, 2018, 05:41:01 PM
Objectively, I think we would all have to admit that the pipe organ blows them all away, at very least in terms of range and power and tonal and expressive versatility.
I couldn't disagree more.
Quote from: XB-70 Valkyrie on May 23, 2018, 05:41:01 PM
Objectively, I think we would all have to admit that the pipe organ blows them all away, at very least in terms of range and power and tonal and expressive versatility.
Range and power, sure, though it comes across as weaker in recordings than in person. Its expressive versatility is limited by the fact that attacks can't be varied in the way that they can with a piano or with any wind or string instrument, although there is a certain control over timbre.
Quote from: Mahlerian on May 26, 2018, 07:37:45 AM
the fact that attacks can't be varied
Can someone who plays (maybe Mahlerian) confirm this is right? That's to say, does the way (speed) the organist strikes the keys have an effect on how the wind enters the pipes, and hence the sound of the start of the notes?
In my opinion the symphony orchestra is an instrument . . .
Quote from: Mandryka on May 26, 2018, 07:39:57 AM
Can someone who plays (maybe Mahlerian) confirm this is right? That's to say, does the way (speed) the organist strikes the keys have an effect on how the wind enters the pipes, and hence the sound of the start of the notes?
I don't play (though I've touched the keys a few times), but see this page for info on what an organ can and can't do to alter attack:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expression_pedal
I should say that bellows organs like the harmonium are more amenable to differentiated attacks than the pipe organ is, though in both cases the differentiation is provided by a modulation of the sound rather than an alteration in the manner of attack from the player's perspective.
What I don't know is whether the player can effect the transients at the start of the notes, at least on baroque and renaissance organs. I have a feeling that touch has something to do with it -- the more articulated the touch, the more clearly it chuffs. But I could be wrong. Someone will come along and explain all I'm sure. I just did a quick google of it and came up with this paper, which I haven't read yet.
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00810933/document
Pipe organs simply don't have the same capacity for expressive nuance of many other instruments.
Yes, you can change the timbre and the registers. What you cannot do is change things between each and every note.
To paraphrase a famous saying from long ago:
"Up Piano! Down Guitar!" 8)
Having composed for both piano and church organ, I can say yes, the "touch" of a piano is more nuanced. The organ, of course, can be a musical blunderbuss, spraying and "smearing" the notes: the same music played on both instruments would show the differences.
The analogies between the pipe organ and the piano begin in the fact that both are keyboard instruments. They also end there.
We aren't making analogies. We're making comparisons.
Well, I'm making a comparison by pointing out the elements in which they are analogous, and, even more, saying that those elements are few, which makes implicit that I think they are very different instruments. There you have your comparison, straight out from what I said in the first post.
Quote from: Mandryka on May 26, 2018, 07:42:05 AM
In my opinion the symphony orchestra is an instrument . . .
I actually agree with this and can also be made more precise in the following sense: the orchestra is a new instrument because it has new emergent instrumental capacities which are absent in their individual component instruments (for example, the amazing new textural and trimbral capacities of the orchestra, that can play Ligeti's atmosphéres as well as a Brahms' symphony!) One could say it's just the sum of the component instruments' textures, but that's not how our ear and even the conductor perceives the orchestral texture (although, of course, the conductor will give individual directions to the component instruments, since they are the ones that generate the texture, that's the magic of emergent properties; it would be interesting to analyse if the orchestral texture is fully epistemologically reducible to its parts, i.e., the conductor would have, at least in principle, the absolute control of the texture by controlling the parts if this were the case.)
Quote from: Cato on May 26, 2018, 06:05:46 PM
Having composed for both piano and church organ, I can say yes, the "touch" of a piano is more nuanced.
And by this you mean the ability of the player to control the transients at the start of the notes?
Quote from: Baron Scarpia on May 18, 2018, 08:08:39 AM
Counterpoint is almost impossible. There is simply no comparison between the capabilities of the two instruments. The main advantage of the guitar is that it can be played at a basic level with almost no skill and instruction.
I absolutely disagree with everything you stated, especially the counterpoint comment. The guitar is very capable of counterpoint. It is very difficult, but lots of people, including myself, can very successfully play Bach fugues (from the Violin Sonatas and some keyboard works) as well as contemporary composers who write contrapuntally for the guitar, such as Michael Tippett.
For me, beginning piano was far easier than beginning guitar. For one thing, the notes on the piano are already formed--the player "just" has to hit them, where on the guitar one has to form them and hit them simultaneously, and often in rather awkward finger configurations. Beginning piano pieces usually fall far more naturally under the fingers.
I can see this turning into quite a debate/rock throwing episode, so I've said all I plan to say on the matter.
Quote from: Mandryka on May 27, 2018, 06:20:42 AM
And by this you mean the ability of the player to control the transients at the start of the notes?
And at the end: all three phases on the organ (the consonant (i.e. the beginning transient), the vowel (the held note), and the end or decay transient) can be highly idiosyncratic from organ to organ (assuming that we have a mechanical pipe organ).
Quote from: Cato on May 27, 2018, 10:53:10 AM
And at the end: all three phases on the organ (the consonant (i.e. the beginning transient), the vowel (the held note), and the end or decay transient) can be highly idiosyncratic from organ to organ (assuming that we have a mechanical pipe organ).
I'm sure you're right about this, and combined with difficult environments -- cathedrals rather than concert halls. It much be a bitch of an instrument to try to master!
Quote from: Toccata&Fugue on May 27, 2018, 09:16:14 AM
I absolutely disagree with everything you stated, especially the counterpoint comment. The guitar is very capable of counterpoint. It is very difficult, but lots of people, including myself, can very successfully play Bach fugues (from the Violin Sonatas and some keyboard works) as well as contemporary composers who write contrapuntally for the guitar, such as Michael Tippett.
For me, beginning piano was far easier than beginning guitar. For one thing, the notes on the piano are already formed--the player "just" has to hit them, where on the guitar one has to form them and hit them simultaneously, and often in rather awkward finger configurations. Beginning piano pieces usually fall far more naturally under the fingers.
I can see this turning into quite a debate/rock throwing episode, so I've said all I plan to say on the matter.
Extremely well-said and all great points.
Worldwide, plucked string instruments have had far more impact than struck string instruments.
Quote from: Toccata&Fugue on May 27, 2018, 09:16:14 AM
For me, beginning piano was far easier than beginning guitar. For one thing, the notes on the piano are already formed--the player "just" has to hit them, where on the guitar one has to form them and hit them simultaneously, and often in rather awkward finger configurations. Beginning piano pieces usually fall far more naturally under the fingers.
As a side comment on this, it's curious that, at advanced piano playing, that very thing which was an advantage becomes the source of difficulty, since one is asked to get a variety of touchs and subtlety which are very difficult to achieve, because of this fixed mechanics. The level of microcontrol at the fingers that one needs is, I would say, equal or higher than those one needs in other instruments where this necessity would seem more obvious.
Quote from: jessop on May 27, 2018, 05:39:09 PM
Worldwide, plucked string instruments have had far more impact than struck string instruments.
Donald Trump, too, has had more impact than people that are far less idiotic than him. Sad!
;)
Quote from: aleazk on May 18, 2018, 10:59:28 AM
The only advantage of guitar over piano is that you can put it in a case and travel comfortably with it in your back. That and its modest capability at polyphony (chords of more than two notes, a melody accompanied with a simple bass line,...) is the only reason why that ugly instrument got some popularity. As for driving music revolutions, call me when you can conceive and play something like Ravel's Jeux d'eau with it, or Ligeti's etudes...
Hmm, modest capability at polyphony, you say?
Well, try this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQu3TWRORm4
Quote from: TalkingHead on May 29, 2018, 12:54:56 PM
Hmm, modest capability at polyphony, you say?
Well, try this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQu3TWRORm4
Doesn't seem really that complex once you clean the surface. And I like BF. Anyway, I said modest in comparison to the piano. I was actually putting the guitar between bow instruments and the piano, and attributing the popularity of guitar to the fact that you can easily play some non-trivial chords to accompany a love song, besides its portability.
Anyway, this whole thread, as everything coming from member "jessop", is just evidently and intentionally intended to become a dirty can of worms. So, with your permission, I'm throwing this can and its content to the the garbage bin :D
The keyboards, whether organ, plinkety-plonk of choice or preference (Virginal, Clavichord, Harpsichord) or piano, have it all over the guitar, though they are all polyphonic instruments with a sizeable range.
The fact that the keyboards allow both hands to engage in producing sound, with the capacity for each hand to play a good number of pitches simultaneously and that over the extreme range of the instrument, makes it hands down vastly 'greater' than the capacity of any guitar or guitarist.
This is almost a default in-place win by the numbers -- how much any one player on any one instrument can play all at once. With a sounding board and attached wooden body all acting as resonator, the piano also 'wins' over guitar, even getting near or equal in delicacy, while its overall dynamic range is that much greater as well.
That all parsed out, the Clavichord, piano, and guitar are each capable of being enormously expressive, something both organ and harpsichord do not yield up to the performer at all easily.
Quote from: Monsieur Croche on May 31, 2018, 01:33:01 AM
The keyboards, whether organ, plinkety-plonk of choice or preference (Virginal, Clavichord, Harpsichord) or piano, have it all over the guitar, though they are all polyphonic instruments with a sizeable range.
The fact that the keyboards allow both hands to engage in producing sound, with the capacity for each hand to play a good number of pitches simultaneously and that over the extreme range of the instrument, makes it hands down vastly 'greater' than the capacity of any guitar or guitarist.
This is almost a default in-place win by the numbers -- how much any one player on any one instrument can play all at once. With a sounding board and attached wooden body all acting as resonator, the piano also 'wins' over guitar, even getting near or equal in delicacy, while its overall dynamic range is that much greater as well.
That all parsed out, the Clavichord, piano, and guitar are each capable of being enormously expressive, something both organ and harpsichord do not yield up to the performer at all easily.
Indeed. But it seems that some people will challenge even the most obvious thing just to feel, or say to themselves, that they have an original opinion :-)
Quote from: aleazk on May 31, 2018, 12:48:50 PM
Indeed. But it seems that some people will challenge even the most obvious thing just to feel, or say to themselves, that they have an original opinion :-)
It's a little bit annoying when some people insist on distorting even the most basic facts :laugh:
Quote from: aleazk on May 26, 2018, 06:55:12 PM
Well, I'm making a comparison by pointing out the elements in which they are analogous, and, even more, saying that those elements are few, which makes implicit that I think they are very different instruments. There you have your comparison, straight out from what I said in the first post.
Yes indeedy, the difference between a wind /reed instrument (organ) and a chordophone percussion instrument (piano) are vast. Sharing a keyboard gene makes them no more or less related than I am to someone who is from another culture and race halfway around the globe.
Any musician whose primary instrument is one or the other, even in the briefest of contact trying the other instrument, is told the blazingly obvious differences in toto the moment they depress even one key.
Amidst the whorl of this epic contest, maybe it is a good point to drop in the obvious?
If you want a guitar sound, and all the instrument can do, a piano is no advantage at all.
If you want a piano sound....
I think there is only so much dithering about the advantages between two wildly non-related instruments (O.k. they're chordophones, and if you accept both plucked and struck as percussion (I do) they are maybe at best 89 x removed cousins with only the chordophone-percussion as shared traits, even less so when you're going to do the ___ vs. ___ when talking family vs family, winds vs. strings, etc.
Each can do something the other can't.
Quote from: jessop on May 27, 2018, 05:39:09 PM
Worldwide, plucked string instruments have had far more impact than struck string instruments.
An instrument well under 20 lbs weight, the space it takes up and portability-- pitted against the practicality of a mechanism of hundreds of lbs. and the square footage its footprint devours... no wonder.
That does not mean what has been made for the guitar has had more influence on western classical music, that world round factor including a lot of indigenous folk and non-western classical, no less legitimate, but affecting western music nary a jot (until some 20th century composers began dipping into that non-western pool for resources and inspiration.)
If I recall properly, every 'western' acoustic instrument we have -- other than those instruments with keyboards -- has its prototypical ancestor's origin in the antiquity of the far east.