Wuorinen's Whirlygig

Started by karlhenning, September 07, 2007, 06:03:20 AM

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Karl Henning

Quote from: Baron Scarpia on June 12, 2018, 09:21:48 AM
My bad, I forgot that example of high poetry.  :D

"I know when to go out, I know when to stay in, get things done."

Advice to live by.  8)

Quote from: CRCulver on June 12, 2018, 09:38:20 AM
That part of Bowie's career is widely seen as a lyrical nadir precisely because he had done better things elsewhere at other times. But I believe his lyrics on songs like "Heat" or "The Motel" or "Sons of the Silent Age" are strong, and they are the sort of thing I would like to find in hip-hop because I am not adverse to hip-hop as a musical form, only its lyrical tropes.

And San Antone's accusation that I am looking for hip-hop without blacks is out of order. If I say I am looking for hip-hop without those tropes, then San Antone seems to be suggesting that African-American artists could only provide those tropes, and that strikes me as appallingly racist. There is no reason that African-Americans, too, could not turn their hand to more abstract or hermetic lyrics.

Musically, I like Let's Dance, part of that may be mere sentiment.

But this phrase got razzed pretty seriously by The Supreme Razzer, FZ:

http://www.youtube.com/v/oPsZZ2ZyIv8
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

San Antone

#301
Quote from: CRCulver on June 12, 2018, 09:38:20 AM
And San Antone's accusation that I am looking for hip-hop without blacks is out of order. If I say I am looking for hip-hop without those tropes, then San Antone seems to be suggesting that African-American artists could only provide those tropes, and that strikes me as appallingly racist. There is no reason that African-Americans, too, could not turn their hand to more abstract or hermetic lyrics.

And you ignored 99% my post where I described precisely how all these Black groups do not engage in the what you call "tropes", but address and express issues relevant to the Black community, and not in a cookie-cutter manner.  The stylistic aspects you wish for, "lyrics as totally abstract or hermetic," are not as important to them as to the three White artists you named.

;)


Karl Henning

Separately, and (well) on topic . . .

This morning, the concierge downstairs told me that he listened to this, and likes it a lot.  There should be more guitar literature like this, he opined.

http://www.youtube.com/v/Y_6LvnlZlTM
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

CRCulver

#303
Quote from: San Antone on June 12, 2018, 09:51:11 AM
And you ignored 99% my post where I described precisely how all these Black groups do not engage in the what you call "tropes" in a cookie-cutter manner.

It does not matter if they don't engage those themes in a cookie-cutter manner. You think I should be satisfied even if those artists approach those tropes in a fresh or distinct manner, but what I would really like to find is hip-hop that does not deal with those themes at all.

And it is in no way racist or anti-Black to search for music that avoids those themes. Just like it isn't some kind of hatred against white demographics when I prefer to avoid, in the same fashion, rock or country music songs that make references to dancing or man-woman relationships that I feel I have heard enough already.

Or just like how it isn't anti-German when I really don't like the sung texts of most 19th-century lieder because of the concerns of Romantic-era poetry. I am just looking for something different. For me, what saved classical music with voice is the fact that in the 20th century, there were composers taking up modernist poets with different concerns.

Similarly, I feel like I could really get into hip-hop if the rapped text on top of its production were different than what I have been finding. (Of course, the production would have to be strong, too.) But it is very discouraging to search when I am attacked straightaway as racist as San Antone did.

San Antone

Quote from: CRCulver on June 12, 2018, 10:14:45 AM
It does not matter if they don't engage those themes in a cookie-cutter manner. You think I should be satisfied even if those artists approach those tropes in a fresh or distinct manner, but what I would really like to find is hip-hop that does not deal with those themes at all. Ever.

And it is in no way racist or anti-Black to search for music that avoids those themes. Just like it isn't some kind of hatred against white demographics when I prefer to avoid, in the same fashion, rock or country music songs that make references to dancing or man-woman relationships that I feel I have heard enough already.

Or just like how it isn't anti-German when I really don't like the sung texts of most 19th-century lieder because of the concerns of Romantic-era poetry. I am just looking for something different. For me, what saved classical music with voice is the fact that in the 20th century, there were composers taking up modernist poets with different concerns.

Similarly, I feel like I could really get into hip-hop if the rapped text on top of its production were different than what I have been finding. (Of course, the production would have to be strong, too.) But it is very discouraging to search when I am attacked straightaway as racist as San Antone did.

I didn't call you a racist, I just pointed out that what you are looking for probably doesn't exist in hip-hop by any Black artist I've heard.  The  music was born from the streets and the streets in Black neighborhoods are not abstract or hermetic.

4hero is a UK group that includes elements of hip-hop along with other styles like nu-jazz, and their lyrics are more ephemeral.

CRCulver

Quote from: San Antone on June 12, 2018, 10:22:31 AM
The music was born from the streets and the streets in Black neighborhoods are not abstract or hermetic.

Rock music was originally born from teenage rebellion etc., but by the late 1960s it had been developed both musically and lyrically in ways that were often foreign to that original context and demographic. The same is true mutatis mutandis for various other genres like jazz. Similarly, I see no reason why there cannot be some hip-hop artists out there, whether African-American or not, who have completely removed the "streets" context from their rapping.

Baron Scarpia


Karl Henning

You know, I never trust the modal verb "should" when applied to Art.  That's pusher talk.
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

Mahlerian

Quote from: Baron Scarpia on June 13, 2018, 12:07:32 AM
Classical music 'should learn from hip hop'

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-44444246

That's nothing.  A New York music education teacher named Ethan Hein thinks that classical music is dead (or at least on life support), and its best chance at any form of survival is to be subsumed into popular music in the form of samples.

http://www.ethanhein.com/wp/2018/the-orchestra-hit-as-a-possible-future-for-classical-music/
"l do not consider my music as atonal, but rather as non-tonal. I feel the unity of all keys. Atonal music by modern composers admits of no key at all, no feeling of any definite center." - Arnold Schoenberg

San Antone

These articles about the demise of classical music are based on a flawed premise, imo.  The journalists who wrote them are under the illusion that music is a commodity, and classical music cannot compete with pop and other forms of commercial music. 

But the music world is not a zero sum game.

Classical music will enjoy an audience as long as there are music schools. 

Karl Henning

Quote from: San Antone on June 13, 2018, 07:21:53 AM
These articles about the demise of classical music are based on a flawed premise, imo.  The journalists who wrote them are under the illusion that music is a commodity, and classical music cannot compete with pop and other forms of commercial music. 

But the music world is not a zero sum game.

Classical music will enjoy an audience as long as there are music schools. 

Perfectly true.
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

arpeggio

A problem that I have with the classical music is dead crowd is that it seems that most of them are American.  They may be correct concerning the status of classical music in the United States.  But I rarely hear a non-American claim that classical music is dying.  Maybe some of out non-American friends can clarify that status of classical music in their countries.

CRCulver

Quote from: San Antone on June 13, 2018, 07:21:53 AM
Classical music will enjoy an audience as long as there are music schools.

While that may be true of chamber music or solo pieces, it is hard to see live performances of orchestral repertoire surviving in places where the state or private patronage ceases to fund orchestras. They are entirely dependent on subsidy.

One sees some contemporary composers anticipating this by claiming that the orchestra's time is past, and that their career and longevity would be better served by not writing for such expensive forces.

Baron Scarpia

Quote from: San Antone on June 13, 2018, 07:21:53 AMClassical music will enjoy an audience as long as there are music schools.

And how long will that be?

Baron Scarpia

Quote from: CRCulver on June 13, 2018, 09:39:45 AM
While that may be true of chamber music or solo pieces, it is hard to see live performances of orchestral repertoire surviving in places where the state or private patronage ceases to fund orchestras. They are entirely dependent on subsidy.

The European model was and continues to be state sponsorship. In the U.S., it was corporate sponsorship. But now that big firms are invariably "global" the quaint idea of "corporate citizenship" has fallen by the wayside. Big corporations no longer see a need to contribute to the livability of their corporate location. The tide goes the other way, they expect tax breaks and other bribes or they threaten to leave.

Karl Henning

Quote from: CRCulver on June 13, 2018, 09:39:45 AM
While that may be true of chamber music or solo pieces, it is hard to see live performances of orchestral repertoire surviving in places where the state or private patronage ceases to fund orchestras. They are entirely dependent on subsidy.

One sees some contemporary composers anticipating this by claiming that the orchestra's time is past, and that their career and longevity would be better served by not writing for such expensive forces.

The major US orchestras, probably, will always devote a sliver of their annual programming to living composers.

But (speaking as someone who wrote his first Symphony last year) it is a considerable challenge, trying to pitch a piece by a living composer, with a less-than-first-tier orchestra.
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

San Antone

Quote from: Baron Scarpia on June 13, 2018, 09:47:15 AM
And how long will that be?

I suspect a long time.  Unless N. Korea nukes us out of existence.  Then none of this will matter.

snyprrr

Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on June 12, 2018, 10:07:31 AM
Separately, and (well) on topic . . .

This morning, the concierge downstairs told me that he listened to this, and likes it a lot.  There should be more guitar literature like this, he opined.

http://www.youtube.com/v/Y_6LvnlZlTM

That was truly awful. I've been booed for much less!!

Modern Composers still, it seems, have absolutely no idea what to do with the ELECTRIC guitar. I heard nothing there that couldn't have been played by acoustic guitars,... what was the point of it needing to be four electrics? Why is it that the electric is almost always treated in its absolutely plainest incarnation? And, yes,... no,... I don't want to hear any Polansky or Wolff, thank you.

aye, that really made me mad.... talk about "avant garde electric guitar tropes",... lol

Quote from: CRCulver on June 12, 2018, 10:29:19 AM
Rock music was originally born from teenage rebellion etc., but by the late 1960s it had been developed both musically and lyrically in ways that were often foreign to that original context and demographic. The same is true mutatis mutandis for various other genres like jazz. Similarly, I see no reason why there cannot be some hip-hop artists out there, whether African-American or not, who have completely removed the "streets" context from their rapping.

sorry, but "street cred" is ALL there is...


btw- you do know that the 5% believe that Mozart was Black, and all that goes with it (whites stole classical from blacks like mozart... yes, it's an actual thing... just go to Yahoo and Search "American Inventors" and see what pops up)...

My whole point was that the MEANS to make most music are now in the hands of a centralized mega-industry run by themovers and shakers... who LET Lamar make his record.

Karl Henning

Quote from: snyprrr on June 13, 2018, 01:58:43 PM
That was truly awful. I've been booed for much less!!

I think Charles can live with the fact that not everybody likes this or that piece of his.

And . . . you've been booed?  Why, I'll never believe it . . . .
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

ComposerOfAvantGarde

#319
Quote from: snyprrr on June 13, 2018, 01:58:43 PM
That was truly awful. I've been booed for much less!!

Modern Composers still, it seems, have absolutely no idea what to do with the ELECTRIC guitar. I heard nothing there that couldn't have been played by acoustic guitars,... what was the point of it needing to be four electrics? Why is it that the electric is almost always treated in its absolutely plainest incarnation? And, yes,... no,... I don't want to hear any Polansky or Wolff, thank you.

aye, that really made me mad.... talk about "avant garde electric guitar tropes",... lol

Kokoras is one of my favourite composers working with electronics. See what you think of this:

https://www.youtube.com/v/z3hYmvd2Fqs

And also this piece for a completely different take:

https://www.youtube.com/v/IwHXDmypUCw