Most complex styles of music

[greg]

Anyone who could put make some sort of list of musical styles which are among the most complex?
It's a generalization, but mainly should be pretty easy to tell, even if it isn't perfect.

Out of what I'm familiar with, I'd make a list like this:
1. New Complexity, 2nd Viennese and Darmstadt-ish stuff
2. Jazz/Fusion
3. Late Romantic
4. Prog Rock

or something... what other musical styles would fit in there?

[CD]

Music from the Ars Subtilior (14th C.) (Codex Chantilly, Codex Ivrea, etc.)
Polyphonists of the mid-1500s (e.g. Ockeghem's Missa Prolationum)

Prog rock is not really complex, just very notey.

[Cato]

Music from the Ars Subtilior (14th C.) (Codex Chantilly, Codex Ivrea, etc.)
Polyphonists of the mid-1500s (e.g. Ockeghem's Missa Prolationum)

Prog rock is not really complex, just very notey.

Right: lots of major and minor chords. 

Complexity: Symphony #4 by Charles Ives.

Also not to be forgotten: The Music of the KRELL!   

[Dana]

2. Jazz/Fusion

      I've you've never seen a free jazz concert, go do so - it's a truly epic experience. You take 3-4 virtuosi and they all play the hell out of their instruments, all at the same time, for the entire concert. I can't decide if it's incredibly complex (because it sounds so dense), or if it's incredibly simple (because the format is so easy to grasp).

[snyprrr]

Truly inspired Composer Music of either Ulra-Late Romantic, or New Complexity, periods would get my vote.

Free Jazz just sounds dense, as you noted.

Prog Rock just has a lot of "parts", as has been noted.

Some "Death Metal", however, does utilize... seriously, haha...



Improv is only good when it doesn't sound like improv.

[Air]

Agreed, Jazz and Prog aren't really complex, just dense...

I'd vote for New Complexity, certainly, but there's a reason I don't listen to it much... 

[greg]

Right: lots of major and minor chords. 

Complexity: Symphony #4 by Charles Ives.

Also not to be forgotten: The Music of the KRELL!   

Krell?... did a search on youtube and couldn't find anything. Is this a band?

[Franco]

I think that some music which seems simple, e.g. Delta blues, is in fact very complex.  It incorporates quarter tone melodic elements and rhythmic sophistication which is so nuanced it cannot be notated.  There are other styles of music, flamenco for example, for which this is true.  I see Western art music as a far less complex music compared to these "folk" genres.

[Luke]

I understand what you are saying - it is a persuasive point and I am inclined to agree with it. A well-made ethnomusicological transcription can often be a thing of spectacular complexity - you can find anything there.....arcane key signatures with microtones indicated; sophisticated rhythmical complexty etc. etc.  I have a few wonderful examples of this sort of thing to hand - the make the music of Nile boatmen and Hungarian village fiddler look like James Dillon or Michael Finnissy...

However, to play devil's advocate for a second, it's probably doubtful that the performers (In these cases and many others) are aware of the rhythmical complexity of what they are actually playing in lots of this music - in their heads, it is probably a lot more simple than that, just as, when I play Bach, I think I am playing an equal line of (say) quavers, but am in fact producing something that the precise measurements of an analyst would show to be unequal (we all do this, even the greatest performers - it's what humans do, and it's wonderful!)

So the apparent complexity seen in the 'score' of the Nile boatmen's song or whatever is really the result of the ethnomusicologist's attempt to include everything in his transcription, on the basis that 'this is an 'alien' style of music and I must not make any assumptions about what is important and what isn't; I will therefore try to notate every last inflection'. Were one to imagine the situation reversed - someone new to western music attempting an equally impartial notation of even something relatively simple, as performed 'in real life' - my example of me playing a line of even quavers in Bach - the result would probably look equally complex.

The other reason, of course, that such music can often seem so complex when viewed through the filter of western notation and western musical categories (of tuning, rhythm and so on) is precisely because these filters are imperfect or at least incomplete, and were designed with western music in mind. We prioritise circle of fifths key signatures, standard accidentals, 2:1 or 3:2 ratio rhythms, and so our notation makes anything else look stranger that perhaps it really is...

Devil's advocate bit over - I still think you are right! 

[Guido]

I understand what you are saying - it is a persuasive point and I am inclined to agree with it. A well-made ethnomusicological transcription can often be a thing of spectacular complexity - you can find anything there.....arcane key signatures with microtones indicated; sophisticated rhythmical complexty etc. etc.  I have a few wonderful examples of this sort of thing to hand - the make the music of Nile boatmen and Hungarian village fiddler look like James Dillon or Michael Finnissy...

However, to play devil's advocate for a second, it's probably doubtful that the performers (In these cases and many others) are aware of the rhythmical complexity of what they are actually playing in lots of this music - in their heads, it is probably a lot more simple than that, just as, when I play Bach, I think I am playing an equal line of (say) quavers, but am in fact producing something that the precise measurements of an analyst would show to be unequal (we all do this, even the greatest performers - it's what humans do, and it's wonderful!)

So the apparent complexity seen in the 'score' of the Nile boatmen's song or whatever is really the result of the ethnomusicologist's attempt to include everything in his transcription, on the basis that 'this is an 'alien' style of music and I must not make any assumptions about what is important and what isn't; I will therefore try to notate every last inflection'. Were one to imagine the situation reversed - someone new to western music attempting an equally impartial notation of even something relatively simple, as performed 'in real life' - my example of me playing a line of even quavers in Bach - the result would probably look equally complex.

The other reason, of course, that such music can often seem so complex when viewed through the filter of western notation and western musical categories (of tuning, rhythm and so on) is precisely because these filters are imperfect or at least incomplete, and were designed with western music in mind. We prioritise circle of fifths key signatures, standard accidentals, 2:1 or 3:2 ratio rhythms, and so our notation makes anything else look stranger that perhaps it really is...

Devil's advocate bit over - I still think you are right! 

I definitely agree far more with your devils advocate version I'm afraid...

[Franco]

The proof of the pudding is that the music, even if not notated, is very hard for a non-practitioner to perform convincingly.  These nuances are such a huge part of the music, if you leave them out either due to an technical inability to capture them or in an effort to "straighten out" the rhythm or melodies, the music does not sound like and loses all of the power of the original.

It does not matter if the Delta blues singer knows the names for the techniques he naturally employs - the complexity is an integral part of the music.

[Luke]

Yes, sure, I agree - except that the same thing could be said of someone playing a classical piece which is superficially simply - say something by JC Bach, or whoever. It still needs someone 'inside the style' to play convincingly, and it still needs an ability to see 'beyond the notes', beyond the simple surface to the complexities and nuances which are undoubtedly underneath.

[CD]

I think that some music which seems simple, e.g. Delta blues, is in fact very complex.  It incorporates quarter tone melodic elements and rhythmic sophistication which is so nuanced it cannot be notated.  There are other styles of music, flamenco for example, for which this is true.  I see Western art music as a far less complex music compared to these "folk" genres.

So are Whitney Houston/Mariah Carey's vocal melismatics, but it's still crap.

[Franco]

IMO, all of the styles mentioned, Delta blues, flamenco, Nile boatmen, Hungarian village songs, are vastly different from the examples you mentioned.  But, I won't argue the point with you, I said what I thought was complex music, if you don't agree, that is your prerogative.

[Luke]

Um actually I did agree - didn't you read what I wrote, first and last sentences? 

[Franco]

My last post was directed to this comment: "So are Whitney Houston/Mariah Carey's vocal melismatics, but it's still crap." by corey.

[Luke]

oh, fair enough!

[MN Dave]

My last post was directed to this comment: "So are Whitney Houston/Mariah Carey's vocal melismatics, but it's still crap." by corey.

Yeah, I don't agree with Corey either if he's calling country blues "crap".

[CD]

Hey, I'm using up my reserve of Unqualified Blanket Statements.

[Franco]

IMO, music has been effected in the West by the elevation of the written score, whereas music, for me, is best thought of as an oral (or aural) tradition. 

Merely because some music has no written tradition (this fact is some proof of why it is complex, the nuances are nearly impossible to capture in written notation and the music is only learned through apprenticeship) does not mean it is not complex and does not involve highly technical aspects which can only be performed by assiduous study and training.  Of course the reverse is true as well, because music does NOT have a score does not always translate into complexity.

I stand by my earlier comments about blues and flamenco, and add the styles that Luke suggested - this music is complex, although can sound much simpler than it is to pull off.