Saul's Music Space

[Luke]

I guess by this standards, Beethoven didn't know how to compose a work of art without any flaws and without breaking the rules of orchestration, therefore he just didn't know what he was doing as a composer.

Following your logic, this is the only conclusion I reach.

Orchestration is not so much a 'right or wrong' skill as notation. Which is why we still have arguments about the quality of Beethoven/Chopin/Schumann/Rachmaninov's abilities in this area, but never, never, never about their abilities to actually write the stuff down. I can't think of any notational nonsense in the musc of thes or any other great composer*

Put it this way. In all my experience of reading scores by the great composers and the pretty-damned-amazing-even-if-not-great composers - and I have a library of several thousand of these scores on my walls, plus as many or more on my computer) I have never in my recollection had that nasty jolt one gets when one reads something clumsily written, with poor grammar. It's almost as if writing things down correctly is the lowest common denominator of good composition - IOW, one might never be a Beethoven, but one has to at least get that right even to be a Diabelli.

Now, OTOH, I have sometimes come across that nasty jolt when reading music which is not by the greats. In transcriptions of jazz and pop songs, for instance (I remember with a shudder a version of Stormy Weather in C major in which all the Es were written as F flats....). In the hugely popular but IMO cheaply written music of Ludovico Einaudi (there's one in F sharp minor which does the whole F natural instead of  E sharp thing). The fact that it is in this lesser music, or transcriptions made by lesser musicians, where one starts to find this lesser notation tells its own story, I think.

And finally, at the other extreme, when I am looking at music by children, students etc., it is rare not to find notational errors.

Surely this is evident to all, I shouldn't really need to point it out. But the line is remarkably consistent. Good composers, whose music is of the highest quality, always write things down well. Children and poor composers are the ones who also tend ot have bad notation. Tells its own story, I think....

*I do not mean, btw, that there is only one way to write a piece, nor even that weirdnesses and 'errors' aren't OK sometimes. There are many scores which contain 'errors' of all sorts, but the ones by the great composers tend to be justifable in some other way, e.g. that the 'faulty' notation has an expressive power that the correct one wouldn't (examples by the handful in e.g. Ives' Concord Sonata)

[Saul]

I just find this whole area tricky to talk about because the obvious retort for the Sauls of this world (I'm talking about Saul but this applies to Teresa and her writing too...to Saul's writing as well, come to that) is - it doesn't matter if it reads badly and has notation/spelling/grammar errors, it only matters that it sounds nice and that people like it (never mind that many don't.....)

On the surface that seems hard to respond to. Aren't we being nit-picky pedants stifling the creative flow of intuitive genius by insisting on writing the stuff down correctly? Well, bluntly, no, we aren't, and no, it isn't enough that people who happen to hear the music in passing like the sounds. (If that were all that made great music, the world would be considerably more full of great music than it is, because making pretty sounds as Saul does on his computer is not really very difficult.)

No, if you are going to write music, and expect people to play it, and expect them to take you seriously in turn, you need to have respect for their musical intelligence, and respect for the art itself. Writing as Saul does shows no respect for the musicians who might play his work (and who have to go through it carefully to work out what he actually means rather than what he writes), no respect for the thousands of composers, including the ones he claims to venerate above all others, who have taken the time to master the craft, and who understood it fully, from the inside, as Saul and his youtube fans don't, I feel. And no respect for himself either, in the long run - because despite his claims to spend ages on each note (!) Saul's attitude towards his craft is complacent and lazy, self-satisfied and unwilling to listen to advice when he badly needs it: doesn't matter if my notation is shoddy - that's real lack of self-respect.

In fact, I would go so far as to say I find notation like Saul's actually insulting, to my intelligence, and to the complexities and subtleties and beauties that are hidden within the art form I love so much. It's vapid, it shows no understanding of music theory and history, it's insulting in its implicit claim to musicality when none is on show. Surely the audience you really want to engage with are not people who click on a youtube video whilst out looking for heaven-knows-what, but people who will take time with the music, examine it, treasure it, live with it - and that audience is going to be utterly alienated before even playing a note by the lack of care and craft implicit in poor notation.

I wonder how many people will 'treasure' your 'music'.

I HAVE HEARD YOUR 'WORKS' ON YOUR PAGE, A NUMBER OF THEM.. COULDN'T GO THROUGH A SINGLE ONE WITHOUT GETTING EXTREMELY BORED.

Ok.. Go on writing 'intelligent well crafted music' that will bore people to the extreme.

Everyone has their choices, and you clearly carved out yours ...

[Saul]

Orchestration is not so much a 'right or wrong' skill as notation. Which is why we still have arguments about the quality of Beethoven/Chopin/Schumann/Rachmaninov's abilities in this area, but never, never, never about their abilities to actually write the stuff down. I can't think of any notational nonsense in the musc of thes or any other great composer*

Put it this way. In all my experience of reading scores by the great composers and the pretty-damned-amazing-even-if-not-great composers - and I have a library of several thousand of these scores on my walls, plus as many or more on my computer) I have never in my recollection had that nasty jolt one gets when one reads something clumsily written, with poor grammar. It's almost as if writing things down correctly is the lowest common denominator of good composition - IOW, one might never be a Beethoven, but one has to at least get that right even to be a Diabelli.

Now, OTOH, I have sometimes come across that nasty jolt when reading music which is not by the greats. In transcriptions of jazz and pop songs, for instance (I remember with a shudder a version of Stormy Weather in C major in which all the Es were written as F flats....). In the hugely popular but IMO cheaply written music of Ludovico Einaudi (there's one in F sharp minor which does the whole F natural instead of  E sharp thing). The fact that it is in this lesser music, or transcriptions made by lesser musicians, where one starts to find this lesser notation tells its own story, I think.

And finally, at the other extreme, when I am looking at music by children, students etc., it is rare not to find notational errors.

Surely this is evident to all, I shouldn't really need to point it out. But the line is remarkably consistent. Good composers, whose music is of the highest quality, always write things down well. Children and poor composers are the ones who also tend ot have bad notation. Tells its own story, I think....

*I do not mean, btw, that there is only one way to write a piece, nor even that weirdnesses and 'errors' aren't OK sometimes. There are many scores which contain 'errors' of all sorts, but the ones by the great composers tend to be justifable in some other way, e.g. that the 'faulty' notation has an expressive power that the correct one wouldn't (examples by the handful in e.g. Ives' Concord Sonata)

He attacked every aspect of Beethoven's skill taken a seperatly. In short he destroyed him.
Poor Beethoven would have been destroyed here, by the 'Know it all atonal lovers'.

[Luke]

Einaudi ought to be a case study on this thread, btw - hugely popular, in a youtubey, Classic FM-y kind of way; new agey, tonal, atmospheric, pretty, aware of classical textures and techniques....but not really interpretable by classical standards. I'm not going to be say that he is an awful composer, because I think he has found a way to make this technique of using classcial textures and shapes within a new age/minimalist context work rather well, and he has some very striking, memorable ideas, also. He ought to be a role model for Saul, in some ways, I think - this is the direction in which I can see Saul's music acheiving its potentially most completely.

But it's interesting and IMO not insignificant, as I hinted at up there, that Einaudi is the only serious composer (or to be harsh and maybe unfair, wannabe-serious composer) whose music features the kind of errors in notation I described, even though to a vastly lesser degree than in Saul's music - for the most part Einaudi writes perfectly well, on this level.

[karlhenning]

I wonder how many people will 'treasure' your 'music'.

I HAVE HEARD YOUR 'WORKS' ON YOUR PAGE, A NUMBER OF THEM.. COULDN'T GO THROUGH A SINGLE ONE WITHOUT GETTING EXTREMELY BORED.

Very interesting remark, Saul. Luke is commenting strictly on the documents;  and as you have no answer, you descend to personal remark.

Not that Luke need worry. Heck, my music bores you ; )

[Franco]

I want to ask  why did Bernstein attack Beethoven so hard saying that even though he was 'the greatest composer ever' he was a terrible orchestrator?

I guess by this standards, Beethoven didn't know how to compose a work of art without any flaws and without breaking the rules of orchestration, therefore he just didn't know what he was doing as a composer.

Following your logic, this is the only conclusion I reach.

Knowing this, Beethoven would have been shredded by some perfectionists here attacking his banalistic and disorganized way of orchestrating a piece of music.
http://www.youtube.com/v/wNi1_kGC9dg

I think you completely missed the point of what Bernstein is saying in this clip.

[karlhenning]

I think you completely missed the point of what Bernstein is saying in this clip.

Yes; curious, the straws at which he grasps to rationalize his lack of basic competencies.

[Luke]

He attacked every aspect of Beethoven's skill taken a seperatly. In short he destroyed him.
Poor Beethoven would have been destroyed here, by the 'Know it all atonal lovers'.

And yet he also called Beethoven the greatest composer of all, you said....

Beethoven has been mentioned here, as an example of 'how it should be done', though. You ignored that bit (unsurprisingly)...

As for your opinions on my music, they mean nothing to me, because I'm afraid I don't have any respect for your musical sensibilities. You don't like atonal or chromatic music, you don't like modern stuff, you don't like music with ambiguities, you hate Schoenberg and Webern, then you won't like much of mine, it's not a bother to me. Plenty of people do, and what is more, they include many people - such as composers Robin Holloway and Alexander Goehr - who I respect enormously as musicians, not people on youtube who think that a symphony is a song and that a MIDI recording is an orchestra 

[Saul]

Karl,

This is personal?

You got to be kidding, my music is from inside of me, from my soul, attacking it is personal by every standard. On the other hand, what did you or he composed that was so earth shuddering and great?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. All you say that you are 'educated musicians that get insulted by my music'...well excuse me to insult you...

And then you had the nerve to call me arrogant...?

I will do a test today and go in the street and stop random people asking them , excuse me have you heard of the world famous composer Karl Henning?

How many will say yes?

And I wouldn't even bother doing this with Luke...his music is just how should I say a waste of paper, ink and time.. yet he had the nerve to brutally attack my music in every way possible, knowing full well, that many have actually enjoyed my music, yes, my music is not an insult, yes its  beautiful that's right, something that Luke has a major problem creating in his music, beauty and meaning and no education or skill can make you put beauty on a piece of paper if you don't have this talent.

Karl, this is the way it is.

[karlhenning]

. . . not people on youtube who think that a symphony is a song and that a MIDI recording is an orchestra 

Burn! : )

[(poco) Sforzando]

Why did you have to go back to this, I have taken your critic about the notation, and even thanked you. But I guess you're too afraid to stay with the compliment that's why you had to say something negative just so people wouldn't think that you really liked my music that much?


The way you did this was incongruous.

Dude, you just don't get it. Out of any number of pieces you've regaled us with, I mentioned the one brief one I've seen thus far that worked. But this is so typical, Saul. You'll clutch at any straw to bolster your unassailable self-esteem.

Should I bring up your piece Chanukah, the score of which you were so indiscreet as to post some years back? There were a few amazing moments in that one too, such as your G minor chord on the bass staff scored for three tubas. (Trombones might have worked - see Berlioz Fantastique IV.) Or a whole note for harp tied over about 8 measures in slow tempo. That note would have died out in the middle of the first measure, let alone sounded for 8. Or writing for timpani as if they were fully melodic instruments. Good stuff, Saul. Keep it up. Bravo, bravo. Happy now?

[Saul]

Burn! : )

Putting other composers down because you cant stand someone composing better music then yours, that's why you have to deface it, and attack it, looking for the 'weak points'... if this is how you want to treat fellow musicians, yes you and Luke, continue this way...

Calling my music 'an Insult' by Luke, just demonstrates the viciousness and the dishonesty with everything he said so far. Trying to be helpful?

Well with help like this, who needs trouble...

Teresa, there's no need to be upset, I have exposed their double standard. Beethoven from that video above would have been kicked and attacked had he lived here today by some  members here, he too had flaws in every aspect as Bernstein suggested, yet, its not an INSULT TO LUKE...

Such drivels don't impress me at all.

Everyone should listen to that Bernstein video and let the TRUTH  WIN THE DAY!

CHEERS,

[monafam]

I've got my popcorn out! 

This thread truly has it all -- compositional and literary discussions; action and adventure; debates and posting duels; drama and, dare I say, a little romance?   

[Luke]

Putting other composers down because you cant stand someone composing better music then yours, that's why you have to deface it, and attack it, looking for the 'weak points'... if this is how you want to treat fellow musicians, yes you and Luke, continue this way...

Calling my music to 'an Insult' by Luke, just demonstrates the viciousness and the dishonesty with everything he said so far. Trying to be helpful?

Just to be clear, I didn't call your music an insult to me. I said it feels insulting to a musician (including me) when they open a score and find that the music is written wrongly.  The genre sort of feeling, I suppose, to opening an expensive luxury item and finding that the instructions don't make sense and the goods itself aren't as well made as the y look on the packet - that's a kind of insult too, isn't it? I love the song Stormy Weather, I don't feel insulted by it in itself - but I did feel insulted, and inconvenienced, when some idiot transcriber prepared a version of it in C major in which all Es were written as F flats. I felt 'I shouldn't have to be deciphering this for you, you ought to know this stuff if you are going to be paid to transcribe music' - that's the feeling I am getting at. Opening the score and seeing that, immediately, also gave me no confidence in the quality of the transcription and made me loathe to play it. That's also what I am talking about.

As far as trying to be helpful - yes. For posts and posts and posts. They are there on the record, lengthy, detailed posts, including the score samples I made for you and the recoridng of Karl's piece I knocked up so that you could hear it as you requested. And in fact, today, all I've written is the above 3 or 4 posts which are entirely about notation, nothing else, and sprang from the talk Karl and Florestan were having with Teresa about spelling and grammar.

As for my music, well, all I can say is what I've said before - your opinion means nothing to me. The criticisms I have made of your music have been detailed and refered to the scores, in the hope that maybe you would decide to think about some of the issues. Your comments about mine are just designed to insult, and I won't sink to that level. I'm not surprised you don't like my music, it was never going to be your sort of thing (though I wonder what you have listened to, as there are some very straightforwardly pleasant little tonal pieces there too which I suppose didn't fit your characterisation of my music, such as The Dove - I think Guido called that one 'a distillation of loveliness' or something, so it can't be too hard on the ears - or my children's pieces  )

[(poco) Sforzando]

I haven't finished my eBook of Poetry yet.  However here is the ordering information for the PDF of my eBook  An Analog Lovers Survival Guide and the Kindle edition

At my Blog SACD Lives? you will find links to some of my Positive Feedback Online articles as well as links to my other three blogs.  Besides the 4 blogs I also have 2 forums and they have links as well.

So in other words, all this work is self-published and you have had nothing accepted by a legitimate publishing house.

[Florestan]

Skill? No. Just takes paying attention while one is attending grammar school. Curious fact, that we even call that level of education grammar school, is it not?

Unfortunately, ours is an age when the very basic requirements for writing a coherent text are dismissed as "oppressive", "stiffling" and "high-brow". Anyone with a computer and internet access publishes his "prose" or "poetry" and becomes instantly a "writer".

Grammar rules? Spelling rules? Rules of logic or rhetoric? To hell with these relics from the past! We live in the era of "personal freedom", and this includes freedom from grammar and spelling.

Painstaking work over a blank paper? Erasing tens of written pages for the sake of a single one? Agonizing over one single right word for hours? To hell with these relics form the past! We live in the era of "self expression", when the most inchoate and rudimentary scribblings have the very same right to be called literature as Absalom, Absalom! or Moby Dick.

The whole poetical output of Baudelaire, Trakl or Esenin fits easily into a paperback? Poor lazy guys from a pitiful age! We live in the era of "tools", which enables anyone, regardless of his mastery of language, to write tons of poetry.

O tempora! O mores!

I haven't finished my eBook of Poetry yet.  However here is the ordering information for the PDF of my eBook  An Analog Lovers Survival Guide and the Kindle edition

At my Blog SACD Lives? you will find links to some of my Positive Feedback Online articles as well as links to my other three blogs.  Besides the 4 blogs I also have 2 forums and they have links as well. 

Teresa, please be so kind to answer this question: do you, in all earnest and hand on heart, consider yourself to be a writer in the same sense that F. Scott Fitzgerald was?

[Saul]

I'm done with hearing critic from Luke, Karl and the rest of the bunch. I don't want to 'insult' you guys with my music.
I will post my music for those who want to enjoy and have fun with it.

That's all. I have achieved with this discussion what I wanted to point out for everyone here for a long time now, the double standard that exists in the modern classical music world and the somewhat dishonesty that prevails in its circles.

Best Wishes,


Saul

[karlhenning]

Just demonstrates the viciousness and the dishonesty . . . Ah, the lengths to which Saul goes, the contortions into which he throws himself, to discount straightforward criticism as . . . Martyrdom!

Reverts to Sfz's point, that all he wanna hear is how purty the music is!

the double standard that exists in the modern classical music world and the somewhat dishonesty that prevails in its circles.

Saul, the dishonesty here is your own.  Well, it is either dishonesty or delusion.  And it's not my contract to sort out which.

So, Saul 'has achieved with this discussion' what he wished:  an exercise in blindness, deafness and baldness by which he remains convinced that he is a Great Artist, and that any helpful advice from professional musicians is "shredding."

Poor, poor Saul. Yawn.

[karlhenning]

"I'm done with hearing [critique]" is funny, though.  As if you've heard any of it.

[Saul]

Just demonstrates the viciousness and the dishonesty . . . Ah, the lengths to which Saul goes, the contortions into which he throws himself, to discount straightforward criticism as . . . Martyrdom!

Reverts to Sfz's point, that all he wanna hear is how purty the music is!

Saul, the dishonesty here is your own.  Well, it is either dishonesty or delusion.  And it's not my contract to sort out which.

So, Saul 'has achieved with this discussion' what he wished:  an exercise in blindness, deafness and baldness by which he remains convinced that he is a Great Artist, and that any helpful advice from professional musicians is "shredding."

Poor, poor Saul. Yawn.

Any objective reader of this discussion would come to the conclusion as I did, that you guys have double standards, and a measure of dishonesty when it comes to music.

The Bernstein video clip exploded in your faces, there is no way you can run around it with 'excuses'. No way.

I have nothing else to say about this , its all pointless now, the Truth is exposed and your double standard even more so.

I will post my music as I said, only for those who want to enjoy it, yes ENJOY MUSIC, something that a number of people refuse to do here.

Cheers,

Saul