Audiences hate modern classical music because their brains cannot cope

[Monsieur Croche]

I'm about to go to bed, but there's one last thing that I was suddenly reminded of and thought was worth mentioning.

Or one person, really.

Haydn.

Not one of Haydn's "jokes" or "surprises" works without semiotics. Without semiotics, there is nothing inherently amusing about a bassoon loudly blaring at the end of a softening and slowing sequence. There is no reason to laugh when a string quartet goes on a few bars longer than predicted. There is no reason to think there's anything odd about the 16th bar of a theme in a symphony having a chord that is much louder than anything in the preceding 15 bars.

I just can't accept any notion that semiotics is something separate and apart from the music, because to do so would be to imply that Haydn did not intend for any of these things to be funny. That he wasn't attempting to get a kind of reaction from his audience. And I can't recall anyone ever seriously suggesting that any of these effects are accidental.

Of course there is something based on the semiotic of the era is present, and I think it impossible for any artist to get away from 'the full set.' [Who totally dismissed semiotics, anyway?] But, the likes of Haydn, playing with the general semiotic is only partially accurate, because he would set up his own little world, direct the listener by way of what he wrote, and build up within the piece itself a construct and syntax which set the listener up with those expectations, then he misled the listener and messed with those expectations he had set up, ergo, surprise. Ditto Mozart. Ditto Beethoven. Ditto Stravinsky, all composers who can make you laugh without resorting to the type of buffoonery we hear in music as often used in underscoring cartoons.

Most of the greats had / have this bit of business down cold. It is only partially based in semiotics, for the rest, they make their own semiotic with which the listener gets familiar, and then they pull the animal out of the hat. [If they did not invent their own, the jokes would remain near the same and have gone stale.] Like I said, there is a lot of sham, trickery and deceit, smoke and mirrors, present in many a good piece of classical music.

But that's where this conversation is going. It's heading towards assertions that a loud bassoon note can only express pitch and volume.

That is pitch, duration and volume, and yes, that is something it can play. There is no 'pouring your emotions out through your instrument,' while via a great command of technique, there is the ability to play it so musically and in any manner and number of ways the composer desires that it will have a strong affect on listeners and evoke some emotion. Players and composers are usually quite concentrated and busy when they play and compose; the romantic notion of their pouring out their soul as they play or compose is just that, a romantic notion.

Musical expression, composing or playing, is technique; without it, you have little hope of composing anything 'expressive' or playing anything 'expressively.'

[Monsieur Croche]

Honestly, at this point Rene Magritte is crying into his pipe.

But that pipe is not really a pipe, is it.

[Florestan]

A bell is a bell is a bell, and until you have repeatedly associated it with something not a bell, it signifies nothing other than a sound produced by a bell.

Except that (1) bells were not born in a social vacuum, or gratuitously and (2) the sound of a bell is posterior to the existence of that bell. Bells were invented precisely because they were needed for a specific function. Their birth and use is inseparable from that function. The reason why bells are associated with pastoral or religious scenes, moods and feelings is not that an individual, or more, first made (arbitrarily) this association and then forced it, by repetition, on all others. On the contrary, the association was there from the start: bells were created precisely for identifying and locating herds, or for calling people to the divine service.

"Hmmm, bird song, must be spring or summer, or..." is only arrived at via the vagaries of an individuals imagination, which because of association of actual bird song, is supplying [and supplanting] the real experience for the facsimile of the real thing.

Well, regardless of any vagaries of imagination, that birds do sing in summer and spring, and that summer and spring are especially propicious for birdsong are two natural facts, and the association between birdsong and summer or spring is a natural one as well. No individual, or group of individuals, no matter how long and hard they tried would have been able to persuade people to associate them if they had not been in association from the beginning.

I'm afraid that for me, tone poems and other program music is,  within the medium, the greatest conman of all music; it is all sham, trickery, deceit, and a lot of smoke and mirrors.

Fixed. I hope you didn't want to make it sound like a universally valid truth.

I argue music itself can not 'express' anything,

I took it from another post of yours that you compose music. May I ask what is your purpose in so doing?

[Florestan]

Musical expression, composing or playing, is technique; without it, you have little hope of composing anything 'expressive' or playing anything 'expressively.'

Technique without expression is blind, expression without technique is lame. 

Alfred Cortot was notorious for his flawed technique yet his recordings are monuments of musical expression...

[Monsieur Croche]

Except that (1) bells were not born in a social vacuum, or gratuitously and (2) the sound of a bell is posterior to the existence of that bell. Bells were invented precisely because they were needed for a specific function. Their birth and use is inseparable from that function. The reason why bells are associated with pastoral or religious scenes, moods and feelings is not that an individual, or more, first made (arbitrarily) this association and then forced it, by repetition, on all others. On the contrary, the association was there from the start: bells were created precisely for identifying and locating herds, or for calling people to the divine service.

Not fixed, so you can continue to take either credit or blame for it. [I hope you didn't want to make ^that^ sound like a universally valid truth.] But, Yes, yes, and yes. Ancient GPS goat-trackers, calls, alarms, signals. They are only inseparable from their function to those who can not separate their sound from their associations with those functions. There is no preventing a composer from using bells in a way that they are just part of a musical texture, or in a way they no longer evoke any of the above, nor is the composer who does that taking a great chance that no one will have a connection with what he wrote, or of losing any meaning 'put' into his score.

Well, regardless of any vagaries of imagination, that birds do sing in summer and spring, and that summer and spring are especially propicious for birdsong are two natural facts, and the association between birdsong and summer or spring is a natural one as well. No individual, or group of individuals, no matter how long and hard they tried would have been able to persuade people to associate them if they had not been in association from the beginning.

Yeah, and birds sing all year round, even in latitudes where there are four very pronounced seasons, including freezing winters... but yeah, too, other than Messiaen, most bird-like sounds in music are associated with spring or summer.

Fixed. I hope you didn't want to make it sound like a universally valid truth.

Why not, I wouldn't at all mind changing a few people's point of view on the subject.

I took it from another post of yours that you compose music. May I ask what is your purpose in so doing?

o.k. -- because I can, at least a bit. Because I delight in getting a musical idea and very much enjoy the problem solving of 'making a piece work.' I title the pieces because if I don't someone else just might. Titles come after the fact, or sometimes when am half-way or further along toward completion. They are maybe a bit but not much suggestive [hard to avoid, 'words,' you know.] things which are texts set to be sung are often named with the arrival of the musical idea. Of course, though being in a limited vocabulary not of enough interest to go to market, everything I write I'm told is 'someway expressive,' though my musician colleagues might be just humoring me or flat out lying about what they think. 

[Florestan]

There is no preventing a composer from using bells in a way that they are just part of a musical texture, or in a way they no longer evoke any of the above, nor is the composer who does that taking a great chance that no one will have a connection with what he wrote, or of losing any meaning 'put' into his score.

Of course there isn't, just as there is no preventing a listener to associate those bells with something pastoral or religious and to come up with his own title or program: On England's Pastures Green, or At the Monastery's Door, even if the composer had something completely different, or nothing at all particularly, in his mind.

o.k. -- because I can, at least a bit.

So, it's more like showing off than having anything specific to say? 





(sorry, couldn't resist)

I title the pieces, too, because if I don't, someone else just might.

So what? Shouldn't the listener be able to 'supply' their own title or program via their personal reaction to the piece?  

[Monsieur Croche]

Technique without expression is blind, expression without technique is lame. 

Alfred Cortot was notorious for his flawed technique yet his recordings are monuments of musical expression.

Again, his playing was expressive because he had technique enough to render it so.

Technique is expression is for both player and composer just a fact of life. It does not make those who only have technique automatically expressive, nor does the fact of the statement ignore or negate the power of the human spirit, an ability to project something other than 'just the notes' via the notes. Still, without technique, whatever is delivered in the way of expression -- which you've partially acknowledged -- is something embarrassing that gets people looking for the exit.

[Gurn Blanston]

So what? Shouldn't the listener be able to 'supply' their own title or program via their personal reaction to the piece?  

So because some drunken ass***e publisher of piano transcriptions 50 years after it was written thought that the trio of Haydn's Paris Symphony #82 sounded like the street music used for a dancing bear show, I'm stuck having to refer to it as 'The Bear', a name which repels me?  If it was just you calling it that to yourself I could (barely) tolerate it. Barely...

[Florestan]

So because some drunken ass***e publisher of piano transcriptions 50 years after it was written thought that the trio of Haydn's Paris Symphony #82 sounded like the street music used for a dancing bear show, I'm stuck having to refer to it as 'The Bear', a name which repels me? 

You don't have to, of course, since nobody prevents you from calling it whatever else you want, or from not calling it anything. A better question is why did the nickname endure?

[Gurn Blanston]

You don't have to, of course, since nobody prevents you from calling it whatever else you want, or from not calling it anything. A better question is why did the nickname endure?

Because someones' brains couldn't cope, perhaps? #82 is so much more difficult to remember...

[Florestan]

Because someones' brains couldn't cope, perhaps? #82 is so much more difficult to remember...

Might be. 

What I don't understand is why you are so upset particularly by the poor bear. After all, there are tons of music out there baptized long after their author was dead.   

[Elgarian]

I'm afraid that tone poems and other program music is, within the medium, the greatest conman of all music; it is all sham, trickery, deceit, and a lot of smoke and mirrors.

That you thoroughly believe this is becoming eminently clear, but I am amazed by your certainty, faced with the sheer numbers of listeners who experience something else. And I don't understand how the provision of a title is somehow an indication of skullduggery. Why may the artist not legitimately provide a pointer to guide the listener or viewer? He knows the power of the associative imagination - why should he not use it? Let's take a crude example: to exhibit a broken piece of concrete on a plinth, titled 'A piece of concrete' is one thing. To exhibit it with the title 'A piece of the Berlin wall' is another. Where is the trickery? The concrete is the same; but the relationship between the viewer and the concrete is not. The concrete unaided can't declare its origin, and the title legitimately shifts the viewer's perception in the direction in which the artist wants to guide him.  I don't understand why artist or listener must, as it were, stick perfectly within the tramlines of a particular discipline, when he or she can meaningfully call into operation other cultural associations of the listener/observer. (Doesn't opera do that all the time, anyway?)

[Monsieur Croche]

Of course there isn't, just as there is no preventing a listener to associate those bells with something pastoral or religious and to come up with his own title or program: On England's Pastures Green, or At the Monastery's Door, even if the composer had something completely different, or nothing at all particularly, in his mind.

Of course. After advocating that the listener 'make up their own program,' and acknowledging that is what many a listener does, I wouldn't rail against that. Must say, though, that the British are noted, composer and listener, for having a very literal sensibility about music which shows up in spades in much British music across many eras. That way around musical perception is not unique to the British, but I don't see why it is wrong to voice an opinion and hope and pray that not all composers and listeners have that literal a bent of mind when it comes to all music... at least not with dozens of people becoming outraged and getting their knickers in a twist, as if I'd physically gone in to their home and slashed all their framed etchings, or some such. Anyway, no really worry, not everybody does go about music that way, and there is room for all types.

So, it's more like showing off than having anything specific to say?  (sorry, couldn't resist)

Humor is allowed and welcomed.

"Showing off" would, I think, involve more than running my work by only a few highly critical musician friends, i.e. don't look for me on youtube or the composer's section here, nor can you expect to see a "fund my piece or recording it" post. Any of those could happen, but I doubt it.

So what? Shouldn't the listener be able to 'supply' their own title or program via their personal reaction to the piece?  

They may think of anything they want; they may make up a title if they want. I'm fairly certain the days when publishers or critics slapped names on pieces written by deceased composers are over, because doing that is currently considered rude as well as a bit tawdry, so no worries. Really, think of it as you will: everyone does.

[Monsieur Croche]

That you thoroughly believe this is becoming eminently clear, but I am amazed by your certainty, faced with the sheer numbers of listeners who experience something else. And I don't understand how the provision of a title is somehow an indication of skullduggery. Why may the artist not legitimately provide a pointer to guide the listener or viewer? He knows the power of the associative imagination - why should he not use it? Let's take a crude example: to exhibit a broken piece of concrete on a plinth, titled 'A piece of concrete' is one thing. To exhibit it with the title 'A piece of the Berlin wall' is another. Where is the trickery? The concrete is the same; but the relationship between the viewer and the concrete is not. The concrete unaided can't declare its origin, and the title legitimately shifts the viewer's perception in the direction in which the artist wants to guide him.  I don't understand why artist or listener must, as it were, stick perfectly within the tramlines of a particular discipline, when he or she can meaningfully call into operation other cultural associations of the listener/observer. (Doesn't opera do that all the time, anyway?)

Haaaa haaa. I never advocated mind-control or banishment, "You, listener and composer, may no longer rely upon extra-musical associations. Kinda hysterical, really. I can't really see why people get upset that music is loaded for bear with tricks, as long as the tricks work, and most don't hear or see the machinery, it's a magic show -- enjoy it.

I do happen to know that some pointers given by composers are not as fully meant as many listeners think, but even then, I really can't think of any who deliberately give out a red herring title simply to gloat at how they've pulled one over on the plebes. [That is the arena of those who compose 'found' pieces by other composers which are actually, their own, i.e. a Hoax. Now there is a weird mentality] There was Frank Zappa, and the sort of title he enjoyed, but that was more irreverent than mean.

[Karl Henning]

"Showing off" would, I think, involve more than running my work by only a few highly critical musician friends, i.e. don't look for me on youtube or the composer's section here, nor can you expect to see a "fund my piece or recording it" post. Any of those could happen, but I doubt it.

It may be a liberty, but I welcome you to start a thread in the Composers section.  My perception is that, if there be "showing off" yonder, it is only part of the mix, and a generally not unbecoming sort of "showing off."

[Karl Henning]

It may be a liberty, but I welcome you to start a thread in the Composers section.  My perception is that, if there be "showing off" yonder, it is only part of the mix, and a generally not unbecoming sort of "showing off."

(Of course, I am an interested party, and it may be that my judgement on the q. is not be trusted.)

[Monsieur Croche]

So because some drunken ass***e publisher of piano transcriptions 50 years after it was written thought that the trio of Haydn's Paris Symphony #82 sounded like the street music used for a dancing bear show, I'm stuck having to refer to it as 'The Bear', a name which repels me?  If it was just you calling it that to yourself I could (barely) tolerate it. Barely...

Hey 'you' are dead and beyond caring, lol.

And how about that "suffocation" prelude by Freddy Chopin, eh? It's a choker.

[Monsieur Croche]

So, it's more like showing off than having anything specific to say?  (sorry, couldn't resist)

Your question about composing jumped out at me when I saw it the second time, i.e. the "having anything specific to say," I found rather stunning so have to ask,

Do you think works named by form alone, Symphony, Concerto, Sonata, Passacaglia, etc. and without any other name or program given, can "Say anything specific? i.e. is that something you think all music does, or should do?

[Elgarian]

Haaaa haaa. I never advocated mind-control or banishment, "You, listener and composer, may no longer rely upon extra-musical associations."

No of course you didn't. That isn't what I was suggesting. You aren't the Music Police, nor do you wish to be. But (if I have this right) you believe that those of us who make extramusical connections that we consider to be meaningful are deluded in some way, either by the trickery of the composer, or by personal and/or cultural association. In other words, you claim to have 'seen through' the illusion. I question the validity of that claim, based on my own experience, the experience of countless others, and the knowledge that some composers (I don't say all) acknowledge extramusical association as a matter of course.

I do happen to know that some pointers given by composers are not as fully meant as many listeners think

But no one is arguing that all composers intend these associations to be made; only that some do. And I say again ... why should they not do so? And why should we not follow their lead, if we wish to engage with the work as fully as possible, without being considered to be delusional?

[Gurn Blanston]

Hey 'you' are dead and beyond caring, lol.

And how about that "suffocation" prelude by Freddy Chopin, eh? It's a choker.

(I'm not quite dead...)

No, but I don't think of any of this crap when I listen to music. All I think about is the music. Even the ones that DO have a title, and even the ones where the title was supplied by the composer, I think about the music. This is all imagination, and anyone is invited to use it however they like, I'm not saying you can't, but on the other hand, no one should assume that everyone does the same thing. I am on the record (or the CD or the stream) as saying 'I don't think, I just listen'. Anyone who knows me will vouch for the fact that I don't think!