Can we revisit this old chestnut?
I've been enjoying a lot of music which seems intuitively composed, music by Luc Ferrari, Michael Pisaro, John Cage and others. The pieces I have been enjoying may have been designed systematically, and they may have a significant structure (≠beginning and end and middle), but if they do it's not obvious to me.
I don't care, and, to parody Liebewitz on Sibelius, I think that their detractors do not understand. The harmony which they feel is wrong makes the music so original! The absence of development, rhythm and melody are its strengths. Take an example (and someone's bound to tell me it's a canon or a set of variations or something!)
https://www.youtube.com/v/gso6mUiDEzc
Structure matters and I would argue Michael Pisaro has structure in "Asleep, Street, Pipes, Tones" though it is elusive. Obviously space and silence are an important part of this. The entire work is an hour long and single sparse notes are the overall impression with several organ recordings interjected. About an hour in, a simple descending melody emerges near the "climax" with notes overlapping. A bit of a strata which in musical terms is an abstract piece of music background and foreground layers intersect and operate and different levels and speeds. The music is also hallucinatory in nature which sort of fits its subject of being on the verge of sleep. I once went to an art exhibit that started at midnight and ended at 7am where the whole point of it was you were sleep deprived as you experienced the visuals and music that was very slowly evolving room to room. Some of it was hallucinatory and some of it was your own mind losing focus because you were sleep deprived. Similarly to how the night evolves in a very elusive form, there is an arch...a structure. Dusk, light sleep, REM, circadian rhythms 1, 2, and 3, light sleep, dawn.
Quote from: relm1 on November 23, 2019, 06:41:18 AM
Structure matters and I would argue Michael Pisaro has structure in "Asleep, Street, Pipes, Tones" though it is elusive. Obviously space and silence are an important part of this. The entire work is an hour long and single sparse notes are the overall impression with several organ recordings interjected. About an hour in, a simple descending melody emerges near the "climax" with notes overlapping. A bit of a strata which in musical terms is an abstract piece of music background and foreground layers intersect and operate and different levels and speeds. The music is also hallucinatory in nature which sort of fits its subject of being on the verge of sleep. I once went to an art exhibit that started at midnight and ended at 7am where the whole point of it was you were sleep deprived as you experienced the visuals and music that was very slowly evolving room to room. Some of it was hallucinatory and some of it was your own mind losing focus because you were sleep deprived. Similarly to how the night evolves in a very elusive form, there is an arch...a structure. Dusk, light sleep, REM, circadian rhythms 1, 2, and 3, light sleep, dawn.
I think it's one thing to say that the music has been composed according to a plan, a process, or that the music has a long range form. But it's quite another thing to say that it matters for the listener. Of course it may matter for the composer -- I'm sure it's much easier to fill time with music if you have defined a process before you start.
My own feeling is that if I can hear the form, then that keeps me listening for longer. An hour long piece like the Wanelweiser
Stones (Christian Wolff) performance, well it's just too much of randomness to make me want to stay with it. Pisaro's music is broken up into quite small units and that helps.
I think (but I'm not sure) that Cage said of
Atlas Eclipticalis that the form is like the stars in the sky -- I'm not sure how long I can watch the night sky.
I think all classical composers who have sufficient command of their craft utilize structure in their work. It is most important when dealing with longer forms, but even miniatures have a structure that no doubt serious consideration went into as part of the composition process.
Cage imposed external forms to his compositions, e.g the star charts, or the outline of a rock or even the random imperfections on a page of manuscript. This was one way he used to remove himself, his taste, his intention, from the process, and his work is an experiment in forms in nature, or serendipitous occurances. In his early work, Morton Feldman used graphic charts to envision and map out a work, but later he become almost entirely intuitive in his writing. But even composing intuitively, a composer uses his internal instincts to naturally create formal structure.
A listener benefits from this process indirectly, since otherwise the music could appear to be aimless, repetitive (or the opposite), seem too long (or the opposite), or otherwise less enjoyable.
Jonathan D. Kramer has an excellent book called The Time of Music which discusses the cultural and theoretical implications of structure. Having a piece of music which is end-goal oriented, having a clear 'trajectory' through time is something fairly unique to european classical styles, where cyclical structures and other approaches to having sounds exist through time that aren't so end-goal oriented are more common everywhere else.
John Cage took a lot more than his contemporaries out of non-western philosophies and practices when it came to structuring his music, which is why I guess many of his longer pieces don't have audible and familiar structures to them.
What is important to understand is not everyone defines structure the same way. For example, the movie Pulp Fiction has traditional structure but is then told out of sequence. It bends traditional structure yet also conforms to it. Form and structure is very important part of art but artists are granted great liberties in how they reveal or interpret it.
Quote from: jess on November 23, 2019, 01:23:56 PM
Jonathan D. Kramer has an excellent book called The Time of Music which discusses the cultural and theoretical implications of structure. Having a piece of music which is end-goal oriented, having a clear 'trajectory' through time is something fairly unique to european classical styles, where cyclical structures and other approaches to having sounds exist through time that aren't so end-goal oriented are more common everywhere else.
John Cage took a lot more than his contemporaries out of non-western philosophies and practices when it came to structuring his music, which is why I guess many of his longer pieces don't have audible and familiar structures to them.
Unfortunately Kramer's book is rare and expensive.
Structure doesn't matter.
Or rather, it only matters when something goes wrong. And "something goes wrong" depends almost entirely on who's doing the looking (listening). We do pretty consistently, and persistently, talk as if these kinds of things were not relationships, as if the listener were not also doing things, active things, with the music as it plays. (The Carter double concerto that I now hear would not be so radically different from the Carter double concerto as I first heard it were that not so.) And leaving the listener out of the equation has consequences, the most pernicious being the elevation of "the listener," meaning always "those listeners who agree with my (totally objective) assessment of this or that piece or style of music," to infallible omnipotence in aesthetic matters.
A listener who dislikes a piece has many ways to express that dislike, noisy, dissonant, formless, and surely the current favorite, atonal. None of these describe the music itself. All of them identify that a listener has failed to establish an understanding or sympathetic relationship with the music in question. Of course there may indeed be reasons for that failure in the music itself, but none of those adjectives do any more than suggest what some of those reasons might be. And if there is one listener--it only takes one--who is able to enjoy the piece, then Hey Presto!!, the piece is enjoyable.
Formless, I would say, is a null set. Everything has a form. Or, to put it another way, every person responding to a thing will impose a sense of form upon it. If that is true, it makes the "formless" criticism disingenuous at best. You are a person? Then you cannot but see, hear, experience structure in everything. It's what you do. That's the matter.
Quote from: Mandryka on November 23, 2019, 10:00:25 PM
Unfortunately Kramer's book is rare and expensive.
steal it from a library
(it's
worth it!!!!!)
Quote from: jess on November 24, 2019, 01:54:35 AM
steal it from a library
(it's worth it!!!!!)
As an ex-librarian I should warn those planning to widen their 'cultural horizons' they could easily end up in court.
You see librarians tend to take a very dim view of the theft of rare, valuable tomes.
Quote from: dissily Mordentroge on November 24, 2019, 02:03:48 AM
As an ex-librarian I should warn those planning to widen their 'cultural horizons' they could easily end up in court.
You see librarians tend to take a very dim view of the theft of rare, valuable tomes.
It's probably cheaper to pay the court fees! ;D
Quote from: Mandryka on November 23, 2019, 07:03:23 AM
My own feeling is that if I can hear the form, then that keeps me listening for longer. An hour long piece like the Wanelweiser Stones (Christian Wolff) performance, well it's just too much of randomness to make me want to stay with it. Pisaro's music is broken up into quite small units and that helps.
I think you answered your own question here. Structure is important - not to say critical - because our brain works best if it can systematize the sensory inputs. Without consciously or at least unconsciously perceivable form, the listener becomes disoriented - which may be the composer's intention - but the point is quickly realized and becomes trivial by repetition, which naturally causes most listeners to lose interest in the music in question.
Quote from: (: premont :) on November 24, 2019, 03:05:51 AM
Structure is important - not to say critical - because our brain works best if it can systematize the sensory inputs. Without consciously or at least unconsciously perceivable form, the listener becomes disoriented - which may be the composer's intention - but the point is quickly realized and becomes trivial by repetition, which naturally causes the listener to lose interest in the music in question.
"The listener," you say? Different listeners make different responses to the same piece. Surely you've noticed this. Unless you are the type of person who automatically discounts others' responses, you have certainly noticed this. So take this unnamed "music in question." Listener A loses interest in it. But what about listener B, who remains rapt throughout? If that happens, the generalization about "the listener" goes out the window, no?
Listener A becomes disoriented. Listener B does not. What can be generalized about "structure" from that? Nothing. Listener A has failed at something. Listener B has succeeded.
And what about Listener C? Let's also posit Listener C, who enjoys being disoriented, who likes having expectations raised and then dashed or replaced with something unexpected. Where does Listener C fit in to this conversation?
Seriously folks. Different listeners have different knowledge, different experience, different preferences, different capacities. Making generalizations about a piece of music (unnamed but definitely in question) without considering any of that is at the very best, um, hasty.
My post was about the human brain, so I made a small edit in my post above.
And what is the purpose of disorienting the listener? The only thing such music evokes is chaos and this is incompatible with the way our brain works.
Quote from: (: premont :) on November 24, 2019, 04:06:02 AM
And what is the purpose of disorienting the listener? The only thing such music evokes is chaos and this is incompatible with the way our brain works.
Ah.
So Listener A gets to be "the listener," while Listeners B and C get snubbed. Too bad. I thought that their experiences might contribute something valuable to this conversation....
Also note that no one has at any time suggested that disorienting "the listener" is a credible goal. Not surprisingly, as "the listener" is not a very credible category.
Also also note that the comment about "such music" would be more compelling if the "such music" part of it referred to a particular piece.
Quote from: Mandryka on November 23, 2019, 03:34:33 AM
Can we revisit this old chestnut?
I've been enjoying a lot of music which seems intuitively composed, music by Luc Ferrari, Michael Pisaro, John Cage and others. The pieces I have been enjoying may have been designed systematically, and they may have a significant structure (≠beginning and end and middle), but if they do it's not obvious to me.
I don't care, and, to parody Liebewitz on Sibelius, I think that their detractors do not understand. The harmony which they feel is wrong makes the music so original! The absence of development, rhythm and melody are its strengths.
I've enjoyed plenty of non-classical music that doesn't have this obvious formal structure, such as what you might term "ambient". Listening to the pieces are more like opening a window to another world, immersing yourself in the view for a while, then closing it again. They don't need to go anywhere.
People have a natural inclination towards order, or structure. From arranging furniture in a room, to books on a shelf, flowers in a vase, to writing music. Even if no structure exists, we will subconsciously will find order, relationships among the components, and create one for ourselves.
The thing that I like very much in Some Guy's post, and San Antonio's and this is really maybe the start of a big topic in itself, is that the act of listening contributes to making the sounds into music. They're probably now going to say that they didn't say anything like that . . .
Here's a conjecture for refutation. Music is the result of an interaction between score, performer and listener in a context. Holistic. No one element is more critical than another,
Quote from: Mandryka on November 24, 2019, 05:00:44 AM
Here's a conjecture for refutation. Music is the result of an interaction between score, performer and listener in a context. Holistic. No one element is more critical than another,
There isn't much reason to refuse this, as it is obviously true. It implies among others that the term "music" is questionable if the listener cannot structure the sounds. In such cases it is simply noise.
Quote from: (: premont :) on November 24, 2019, 05:38:36 AM
There isn't much reason to refuse this, as it is obviously true. It implies among others that the term "music" is questionable if the listener cannot structure the sounds. In such cases it is simply noise.
To my way of thinking the only thing that separates music from noise is structure. Now, one can enjoy listening to noise, but that does not make noise music.
Quote from: Mandryka on November 24, 2019, 05:00:44 AM
The thing that I like very much in Some Guy's post, and San Antonio's and this is really maybe the start of a big topic in itself, is that the act of listening contributes to making the sounds into music. They're probably now going to say that they didn't say anything like that . . .
Here's a conjecture for refutation. Music is the result of an interaction between score, performer and listener in a context. Holistic. No one element is more critical than another,
I agree with this, and did say something like this in my post. ;)
Quote from: San Antone on November 23, 2019, 08:06:31 AM
In his early work, Morton Feldman used graphic charts to envision and map out a work, but later he become almost entirely intuitive in his writing. But even composing intuitively, a composer uses his internal instincts to naturally create formal structure.
I just want to mention something which happened to me which (for once) made me shut up. I was talking about form to someone who normally wouldn't touch Feldman with a barge pole. I mentioned this idea that late Feldman is intuitive and played as an example something, I think it was
For Philip Guston. He just turned round to me and said "What are you talking about? It's just a set of variations!"
Quote from: San Antone on November 24, 2019, 04:52:50 AM
People have a natural inclination towards order, or structure. From arranging furniture in a room, to books on a shelf, flowers in a vase, to writing music. Even if no structure exists, we will subconsciously will find order, relationships among the components, and create one for ourselves.
Precisely!
As a (formerly active) composer, I never had a "structure" in mind for a work, but followed the music to wherever it wanted to go, an idea which may sound very odd. Imposing a
strict structure on an idea at the beginning seemed like a strangulation. The structure would evolve from the musical ideas themselves.
With a work like my
Exaudi me, one might think that the structure is at least somewhat imposed by the text, but I used the text in a more idiosyncratic way: often the text's inherent ups and downs and longs and shorts will fashion the melody at least to some extent. However, I somewhat did the opposite, and followed an idea of the singers exploring various ways of imploring Divinity to listen to them, with a solo soprano guiding them out of the initial chaos: the initial chaos hints that some sort of order must be wrought from it.
25 minutes later there is a massive bell-like climax, followed by the solo soprano's line slowly, in exhaustion, desperation, fading away. But the work has hinted at such a finale earlier: one could say that the structure involved a back-and-forth (not exactly a dialogue) between the choir and the soloist, and occasionally among the choir (a double SATB).
Quote from: Mandryka on November 24, 2019, 05:50:06 AM
I just want to mention something which happened to me which (for once) made me shut up. I was talking about form to someone who normally wouldn't touch Feldman with a barge pole. I mentioned this idea that late Feldman is intuitive and played as an example something, I think it was For Philip Guston. He just turned round to me and said "What are you talking about? It's just a set of variations!"
Except, that Feldman himself described his process and finding the next gesture intuitively, based upon what he had written before.
Quote from: San Antone on November 24, 2019, 06:05:06 AM
Except, that Feldman himself described his process and finding the next gesture intuitively, based upon what he had written before.
And how is that different from how Beethoven wrote the Diabelli variations?
I suspect the answer has to do with long range structure -- this idea of goal directedness which keeps coming up.
Quote from: Mandryka on November 24, 2019, 06:08:17 AM
And how is that different from how Beethoven wrote the Diabelli variations?
I suspect the answer has to do with long range structure -- this idea of goal directedness which keeps coming up.
Well, for one thing, Feldman did not write or have a theme that he was variating, as was Beethoven. Schoenberg's method has been called constant variation sense the row is being constantly manipulated throughout the work. But I do not think even this loose idea of variation is how Feldman was working. He was responding to what his ear wished to hear next.
Quote from: Mandryka on November 24, 2019, 05:50:06 AM
I just want to mention something which happened to me which (for once) made me shut up. I was talking about form to someone who normally wouldn't touch Feldman with a barge pole. I mentioned this idea that late Feldman is intuitive and played as an example something, I think it was For Philip Guston. He just turned round to me and said "What are you talking about? It's just a set of variations!"
It is thought provoking, that you, who undisputedly is a more educated and experienced listener than most, were unable to recognize any structure in the music. If the structure is that difficult to recognize, it may as well be absent, and the sounding result will not be separable from noise.
Quote from: (: premont :) on November 24, 2019, 06:27:55 AM
it [form] may as well be absent, and the sounding result will not be separable from noise.
what I really want to explore is that comma -- is it a "therefore" or is it possible that something without perceivable form is poetry? Here's something to think about -- I don't believe there's a form there, I think it is music, poetic music. Or rather, it stands in some sort of relation which I haven't explored (yet) to paradigm cases of music. . . . Oh my god, even more things to think about!
https://www.youtube.com/v/8C6XlF_2VrQ&t=17s
Quote from: San Antone on November 24, 2019, 06:23:26 AM
Well, for one thing, Feldman did not write or have a theme that he was variating, as was Beethoven. Schoenberg's method has been called constant variation sense the row is being constantly manipulated throughout the work. But I do not think even this loose idea of variation is how Feldman was working. He was responding to what his ear wished to hear next.
Why doesn't the theme appear in the first 10 seconds?
https://www.youtube.com/v/13WGthWZink
(I think it's a fabulous piece of music, just 20 times too long!)
Quote from: San Antone on November 24, 2019, 06:23:26 AM
He was responding to what his ear wished to hear next.
A friend of mine who makes a sort of living as a composer says he has tried to do this, but finds it impossibly hard to fill more that a couple of minutes! Have you ever composed anything intuitively à la Feldman, San Antonio?
Quote from: San Antone on November 24, 2019, 05:45:09 AM
To my way of thinking the only thing that separates music from noise is structure. Now, one can enjoy listening to noise, but that does not make noise music.
I would argue that it can if the listener wants to consider it as such. I mean, who is to argue with that?
Quote from: Mandryka on November 24, 2019, 06:42:11 AM
Why doesn't the theme appear in the first 10 seconds?
https://www.youtube.com/v/13WGthWZink
(I think it's a fabulous piece of music, just 20 times too long!)
A friend of mine who makes a sort of living as a composer says he has tried to do this, but finds it impossibly hard to fill more that a couple of minutes! Have you ever composed anything intuitively à la Feldman, San Antonio?
Feldman is making permutations of that melodic cell, which I think is different than variations of a theme. No, I have never worked in the manner of Feldman's intuitive approach, but I believe him on how he composed. It was also important to him for each gesture to be heard distinctly, separated by silence, and not seen as connected to the gestures before and after.
Quote from: jess on November 24, 2019, 10:04:24 AM
I would argue that it can if the listener wants to consider it as such. I mean, who is to argue with that?
I thought of that after I posted - but structure-less noise would require someone to make that determination, IOW, they would intentionally
want to hear noise as musical. Otherwise, noise remains noise, whereas a Beethoven sonata will be music no matter if anyone listens or not.
Quote from: Mandryka on November 24, 2019, 06:39:19 AM
what I really want to explore is that comma -- is it a "therefore" or is it possible that something without perceivable form is poetry? Here's something to think about -- I don't believe there's a form there, I think it is music, poetic music. Or rather, it stands in some sort of relation which I haven't explored (yet) to paradigm cases of music. . . . Oh my god, even more things to think about!
https://www.youtube.com/v/8C6XlF_2VrQ&t=17s
I have listened to a small part of this (my attention span is far too short). In some way I feel cheated, if this is to be considered music. It makes me inevitably associate to The Emperor's New Clothes. But I'm probably just too old, conservative and hidebound.
Quote from: (: premont :) on November 24, 2019, 10:39:00 AM
I have listened to a small part of this (my attention span is far too short). In some way I feel cheated, if this is to be considered music. It makes me inevitably associate to The Emperor's New Clothes. But I'm probably just too old, conservative and hidebound.
I just find that he has the knack. a gift, for making a collage out of ready made sound snippets which feels natural and beautiful. I don't know if it's relation to paradigm cases of music is close enough for it to fall into the same category -- I mean, it may not be music at all!
Quote from: (: premont :) on November 24, 2019, 10:39:00 AM
But I'm probably just too old.
You're only as old as you feel!
Quote from: San Antone on November 24, 2019, 10:09:41 AM
I thought of that after I posted - but structure-less noise would require someone to make that determination, IOW, they would intentionally want to hear noise as musical. Otherwise, noise remains noise, whereas a Beethoven sonata will be music no matter if anyone listens or not.
What do you make of Presque Rien, the Ferrari?
Quote from: San Antone on November 24, 2019, 10:07:17 AM
It was also important to him for each gesture to be heard distinctly, separated by silence, and not seen as connected to the gestures before and after.
That's interesting. Do you know why? I'm just trying to get a better handle on what he was trying to achieve.
Quote from: Cato on November 24, 2019, 06:03:55 AM
Precisely!
As a (formerly active) composer, I never had a "structure" in mind for a work, but followed the music to wherever it wanted to go, an idea which may sound very odd. Imposing a strict structure on an idea at the beginning seemed like a strangulation. The structure would evolve from the musical ideas themselves.
With a work like my Exaudi me, one might think that the structure is at least somewhat imposed by the text, but I used the text in a more idiosyncratic way: often the text's inherent ups and downs and longs and shorts will fashion the melody at least to some extent. However, I somewhat did the opposite, and followed an idea of the singers exploring various ways of imploring Divinity to listen to them, with a solo soprano guiding them out of the initial chaos: the initial chaos hints that some sort of order must be wrought from it.
25 minutes later there is a massive bell-like climax, followed by the solo soprano's line slowly, in exhaustion, desperation, fading away. But the work has hinted at such a finale earlier: one could say that the structure involved a back-and-forth (not exactly a dialogue) between the choir and the soloist, and occasionally among the choir (a double SATB).
I want to hear it! You've sold me a ticket. Is it recorded anywhere.
Quote from: Mandryka on November 24, 2019, 11:19:34 AM
What do you make of Presque Rien, the Ferrari?
I used to listen to Ferrari, and others of that style, but not for some time.
Musique concrete is not a genre that interests me anymore.
Quote from: Mandryka on November 24, 2019, 11:21:14 AM
That's interesting. Do you know why? I'm just trying to get a better handle on what he was trying to achieve.
There is a quote from him something to the effect that he wanted to "liberate the sounds". I understand him to mean to liberate them from functional harmony, or from precisely the kind of function a chord, or melodic cell would have in a tonal environment. But it has been a while since I read his thoughts on this idea. It probably is something in Give My Regards to Eighth Street.
Quote from: Mandryka on November 24, 2019, 11:18:01 AM
I just find that he has the knack. a gift, for making a collage out of ready made sound snippets which feels natural and beautiful. I don't know if it's relation to paradigm cases of music is close enough for it to fall into the same category -- I mean, it may not be music at all!
Well, yes - but there is so much other (real) music, I rather want to spend my time with.
Quote from: Mandryka
You're only as old as you feel!
True, but in this context I feel older, than I am.
Quote from: San Antone on November 24, 2019, 11:29:13 AM
There is a quote from him something to the effect that he wanted to "liberate the sounds". I understand him to mean to liberate them from functional harmony, or from precisely the kind of function a chord, or melodic cell would have in a tonal environment. But it has been a while since I read his thoughts on this idea. It probably is something in Give My Regards to Eighth Street.
Was it you who once read a book on Cage which you recommended really enthusiastically? Or was it someone else?
Quote from: Mandryka on November 24, 2019, 12:03:56 PM
Was it you who once read a book on Cage which you recommended really enthusiastically? Or was it someone else?
Silence. That is his best book, and is really a good read if you are interested in his philosophy. I may have recommended it.
My view is that structure only matters to the composer. Otherwise it is of no importance.
Quote from: San Antone on November 24, 2019, 10:09:41 AMOtherwise, noise remains noise, whereas a Beethoven sonata will be music no matter if anyone listens or not.
If no one's listening it's not a Beethoven sonata it's just a pattern of vibrations of the air. Music requires a listener, specifically the presence of a conscious mind.
Quote from: Mandryka on November 24, 2019, 11:22:52 AM
I want to hear it! You've sold me a ticket. Is it recorded anywhere.
Here is a MIDI version: it is not bad for MIDI. OF course the words are not sung, only vowel sounds.
https://www.mediafire.com/file/db79ny3b2wqd4re/Exaudi_Me_%25283%2529.mp3/file (https://www.mediafire.com/file/db79ny3b2wqd4re/Exaudi_Me_%25283%2529.mp3/file)
And the score:
https://www.mediafire.com/file/bgm446csffvy8hy/Schulte_Exaudi_Me_with_keybd_-_2016-07-16_%25282%2529_%25281%2529_%25281%2529.pdf/file (https://www.mediafire.com/file/bgm446csffvy8hy/Schulte_Exaudi_Me_with_keybd_-_2016-07-16_%25282%2529_%25281%2529_%25281%2529.pdf/file)
Quote from: amw on November 24, 2019, 03:05:22 PM
My view is that structure only matters to the composer. Otherwise it is of no importance.
If no one's listening it's not a Beethoven sonata it's just a pattern of vibrations of the air. Music requires a listener, specifically the presence of a conscious mind.
Point taken. I phrased my post crudely. What I meant was that a listener must intentionally desire to hear noise as musical, whereas, no matter how a listener approaches a sonata by Beethoven, they will perceive what they hear as music. This is not to say that there are people who might think the 4th movement of the Hammerklavier sonata might sound like noise to them. ;)
That is somewhat affected by cultural factors though. We react to Beethoven as though it's music primarily because we're raised in an environment with constant exposure to certain kinds of sounds that we learn to consider musical—ie songs on the radio, background music in TV and movies and advertisements, and music at our place of worship or that we sing ourselves during holidays (and these days also streaming sites, etc). But as far as I know the reaction to certain sounds being "musical" is entirely a learned reaction: we learn that the sound of a piano signifies "music" and should be listened to rather than ignored or talked over, and therefore that primes us to hear a Beethoven piano sonata as "musical" etc. To someone who grew up immersed in a culture without pianos or equal temperament, or in general with a different conception of music, Beethoven might well sound like noise. (There's some limited anthropological evidence to support this, but obviously it's hard to find cultures that haven't ever been exposed to Western music at this point.)
In any case this is a tangent but I think we hear both a Beethoven piano sonata and e.g. this largely unstructured piece by Peter Ablinger (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26Zj_dVONgs) as "music" primarily because of the sound of the piano rather than any identifiable structural elements. Whereas something like this, also by Ablinger (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6EUA5-Jtac) has a very clear structure but is harder to accept as "music" because we're not used to hearing the spoken word as musical, but the presence of the pianist forces us to recontextualise and try to ignore the meaning of the words in order to focus on their sounds.
Maybe we end up saying something like X is music for Y iff Y listens to it in a certain way - so presque rien is music for me but not for Premont because I get myself in a certain relation with it. But this raises more questions than it answers. What is this relation to a listener which is constitutive of being music?
Quote from: (: premont :) on November 24, 2019, 04:06:02 AM
My post was about the human brain, so I made a small edit in my post above.
And what is the purpose of disorienting the listener? The only thing such music evokes is chaos and this is incompatible with the way our brain works.
You haven't met some of my acquaintances.
Quote from: Mandryka on November 24, 2019, 08:22:23 PM
Maybe we end up saying something like X is music for Y iff Y listens to it in a certain way - so presque rien is music for me but not for Premont because I get myself in a certain relation with it. But this raises more questions than it answers. What is this relation to a listener which is constitutive of being music?
Music is an unfolding of sound that gives us pleasure. Is there a circumstances when it is practically necessary to define it with any more specificity than that, except for course for the purpose of wasting an entire evening arguing with someone on an internet forum? :)
Quote from: Ratliff on November 24, 2019, 09:18:58 PM
Music is an unfolding of sound that gives us pleasure. Is there a circumstances when it is practically necessary to define it with any more specificity than that, except for course for the purpose of wasting an entire evening arguing with someone on an internet forum? :)
Accepting music as an unfolding of sound that gives us pleasure how would a reluctant conscript define a marching band he/she hated the sound of ?
If the definition of "music" is too broad, then almost anything could be considered music, creating no distinction between sound, noise, and music.
IMO, there two defining aspects of music: 1) organization of sound and 2) an intention to create music, both accomplished by a human being(s).
I do not think it useful to allow a listener to define what is music; if someone wishes to hear a jack hammer as music, so be it - but that does not change the definition of what music is for everyone.
Quote from: San Antone on November 25, 2019, 02:29:34 AM
If the definition of "music" is too broad, then almost anything could be considered music, creating no distinction between sound, noise, and music.
IMO, there two defining aspects of music: 1) organization of sound and 2) an intention to create music, both accomplished by a human being(s).
I do not think it useful to allow a listener to define what is music; if someone wishes to hear a jack hammer as music, so be it - but that does not change the definition of what music is for everyone.
There's a clinical term for this condition but I've forgotten it. A woman I know hears all music as noise. Her clinical hearing tests come back normal for a woman of her age, mid 30's yet she cannot tolerate music. She can detect pitch definitions but interestingly finds sounds such as the rhythmic click of a train on the tracks also intensely irritating. Doesn't help us define music though.
Quote from: dissily Mordentroge on November 25, 2019, 02:36:10 AM
There's a clinical term for this condition but I've forgotten it. A woman I know hears all music as noise. Here clinical hearing tests come back normal for a woman of her age, mid 30's yet she cannot tolerate music. She can detect pitch definitions but interestingly finds sounds such as the rhythmic click of a train on the tracks also intensely irritating. Doesn't help us define music though.
In the 1990's, when
Oliver Sacks and his books were big, I looked into things like this.
Amusia or
Auditory agnosia might be the terms you want. The former is very specific, and very rare, and a brain defect due to a stroke or tumor or whatever is involved. I believe the specific part of the brain involved is the amygdala, but perhaps not necessarily.
Mandryka entitled his thread: "Why does structure matter?" Which seems to assume that structure does matter. However, we've had several contributors say opposing things:
Structure does not matter
Structure only matters to the composer
Structure is what differentiates music from noise
Then the thread became derailed in a discussion trying to define "music".
The only thing that has become clear to me is that this idea of structure and even of music itself is very subjective: different people coming to vastly different conclusions.
I have made my thoughts known, and will now respectfully bow out of the discussion, continuing to lurk, because the posts are interesting, but I don't think I have anything further to add.
8)
Here's John Cage's Four, I don't feel aware of any significant structure
https://youtube.com/v/_UsC2TBvGy8
I can just about stay with the random sequence of chords for 30 minutes.
Quote from: San Antone on November 25, 2019, 04:43:33 AM
Mandryka entitled his thread: "Why does structure matter?" Which seems to assume that structure does matter. However, we've had several contributors say opposing things:
Structure does not matter
Structure only matters to the composer
Structure is what differentiates music from noise
Then the thread became derailed in a discussion trying to define "music".
The only thing that has become clear to me is that this idea of structure and even of music itself is very subjective: different people coming to vastly different conclusions.
I have made my thoughts known, and will now respectfully bow out of the discussion, continuing to lurk, because the posts are interesting, but I don't think I have anything further to add.
8)
We apparently
want to find patterns as part of our human nature. In responding to an earlier question I had consulted my
Oliver Sacks books and was reminded of
pareiodolia, which is the phenomenon of finding patterns in something random.
If the music is good, I do not think the structure matters: did not the critics complain quite a bit about
Tchaikovsky's structural weaknesses, and how the
Bruckner symphonies were wandering behemoths?
But whose music do people want more of these days?
Quote from: amw on November 24, 2019, 05:09:13 PM
In any case this is a tangent but I think we hear both a Beethoven piano sonata and e.g. this largely unstructured piece by Peter Ablinger (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26Zj_dVONgs) as "music" primarily because of the sound of the piano rather than any identifiable structural elements. Whereas something like this, also by Ablinger (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6EUA5-Jtac) has a very clear structure but is harder to accept as "music" because we're not used to hearing the spoken word as musical, but the presence of the pianist forces us to recontextualise and try to ignore the meaning of the words in order to focus on their sounds.
What about listening to a piano tuner at work? It is after all the sounds of a piano. Does he produce music or only if someone perceives it as music?
Quote from: dissily Mordentroge on November 24, 2019, 08:59:56 PM
You haven't met some of my acquaintances.
Maybe for the better. :)
I was thinking of all the musical journals from 1950's-1960's Academia where Professor X 8) would furiously show the mathematical structure of his latest post-Webern masterpiece. 0:) Charts and diagrams and phrases like "intervallic analysis" and "non-linear motivic pulsations" were supposed to make the listener go ga-ga over this marvelous structure imitating the music of the spheres itself!
As we know, people walked or stayed away from much of this, unable to perceive much or any structure, and unimpressed by the overall musical result.
Did the structure matter in these works? Apparently not.
Quote from: dissily Mordentroge on November 25, 2019, 02:08:59 AM
Accepting music as an unfolding of sound that gives us pleasure how would a reluctant conscript define a marching band he/she hated the sound of ?
He or she might recognize it as giving others pleasure, or might define it as "so-called music." The definition works for me. Maybe it makes sense to add a requirement that the unfolding of sound was deliberately produced for the purpose.
Feel free to go on debating whether notes on a page are music, or if music is only created when it is performed, etc.
Quote from: San Antone on November 25, 2019, 02:29:34 AM
I do not think it useful to allow a listener to define what is music; if someone wishes to hear a jack hammer as music, so be it - but that does not change the definition of what music is for everyone.
But when I'm listening to a jackhammer, it's just me doing the listening. "Everyone" doesn't enter into it. (I doubt there's a definition of "music" that works for "everyone," anyway.)
That's also true for when I'm listening to Shostakovich's 11th. (Which is what is on at the moment, just by the way.) It's just me, here in my wee room in Poble Sec.) There's no "everyone" about it.
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bc/IKB_191.jpg/800px-IKB_191.jpg)
Suppose someone said that the sound of the piano tuner or hammer was music. Would that be like saying that Yves Klein's IKB 191 is fine art?
The extension of the concept of "fine art" to IKB 191 has been authorised by experts: curators and investors and academics.
(This post is like something in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations!)
Quote from: San Antone on November 25, 2019, 02:29:34 AM
IMO, there two defining aspects of music: 1) organization of sound and 2) an intention to create music, both accomplished by a human being(s).
I do not think it useful to allow a listener to define what is music; if someone wishes to hear a jack hammer as music, so be it - but that does not change the definition of what music is for everyone.
Is this implying that the listener should not be considered a) a human nor b) an active participant in the music?
Could the experience of listening to a jackhammer be an experience which is organised in part in the listener's mind and in part by the contract that the human operating the jackhammer is working with? Could the listener be a human being who intentionally intends to listen to it as music, and therefore the sound of the jackhammer is music?
How do you define what sounds are organised by a human and what is not?
It's much more pleasant on hearing the grating of a metal roller shutter on a nearby building to remark "somebody is playing Xenakis" ;D.
Or if someone knocks over a bag of nails, and then drops a hammer, to say "someone is playing Beethoven."
Which actually was said. In 1881, 54 years after Beethoven had died. So at least, you picked a composer who has only been dead for 18 years. But you have also probably never written anything as important as The Stones of Venice, so perhaps that evens things out....
This does illustrate, for the 27 billionth time, give or take an odd million or six, the difference between music "criticism" and music--music changes over time, that is, Beethoven sounds different from Bach, Tchaikovsky from Beethoven, Stravinsky from Tchaikovsky (mostly :)), and Xenakis from Stravinsky. But the invectives all sound the same, whether they're from 1819 or 1919 or 2019.
You'd think that as the sounds of music change over the years that the invectives would change, too. But nope. With very small changes in vocabulary and maybe style, any slam of new music from any year about any composer will sound identical. "Noisy, formless, off-putting." Who's that about, Chopin? Brahms? Cage? Nobody knows. Could be anybody.
At least music by an architect won't be criticized for lacking structure, eh? Or WiLL it?
So how does noisy, formless and off putting get transformed into beautiful and deep?
I'm reading a book about Van Gogh at the moment, where exactly this happened. In his case part of the story is the investment of very large sums of money.
Wouldn't it be interesting to be able to hear op 131 or the Leipzig chorales with the same bewilderment, the same naivety, as the first listeners?
It's also maybe worth mentioning that beautiful and deep can get transformed into noisy, formless and off putting, presumably when institutional investment dries up. This happened to Ockeghem in the c19 century.
Well, I'm not sure I could explain how it happens. Why it happens is easier--none of those things, that is, none of the adjectives, describes the music. They all refer, in reality, to the responses. By people. And people do respond differently, from person to person and from year to year.
It would indeed be interesting to be able to hear op. 131 like its first listeners.
Quote from: some guy on November 26, 2019, 08:54:17 AM
Well, I'm not sure I could explain how it happens. Why it happens is easier--none of those things, that is, none of the adjectives, describes the music. They all refer, in reality, to the responses. By people. And people do respond differently, from person to person and from year to year.
I am sure you're right.
I wasn't criticising Xenakis, I like his electro acoustic works and the roller shutter actually sounds more pleasant to me as a result :).
Quote from: 2dogs on November 26, 2019, 10:36:56 PM
I wasn't criticising Xenakis, I like his electro acoustic works and the roller shutter actually sounds more pleasant to me as a result :).
The roller shutter is indeed a lovely sound.
I had a similar experience with fingernails on a black board (soon to be replaced with the squeaking of a dryerase marker on a white board). That sound used to trigger an unpleasant physical reaction in my chest. After several years of listening to new music, I heard that sound one day (I was a teacher, so had many opportunities) without the unpleasant reaction--only pleasure. So that's good.
Otherwise, it occurred to me the other day to wonder "what do people mean when they say 'structure'?" That is, what are they referring to? It's embarrassing to me to admit this occurred to me so late in the game. I usually go straight for the premises, after all. Perhaps Mandryka's "beginning, middle, end" reference lulled me into submission. ;D
But in this thread so far, no one has spent much time talking about the word itself, thus leaving the conversation free to wander all over the contradictory place, with no sense of the contradiction. So I wonder. How much of any disagreements so far are not really disagreements, just different ideas about what 'structure' refers to.
[This, just by the way, is a good example of why the "let's not get into semantics, here" plaint is so pernicious. Or at least disingenuous. If we DON'T get into semantics, then we're liable to the endless loop recounted in Twain's story about the father, the daughter, and the daughter's boyfriend. The father and boyfriend find themselves unexpectedly agreeing about the importance of c.o.'s. Only one tiny problem, which has the daughter biting her otherwise impeccable nails against when the loop DOES end--the father means "commissioned officer" and the boyfriend means "concientious objector."]
It essentially matters for the same reasons that the grammar in this sentence matters.
Or the reasons why buildings and architecture are different to having a pile of bricks and wood dumped on a plot of land.
Making choices as to the organisation of sonic materials, construction and planning, is what makes the difference between music and random ambient sound.
I mean, people seem far to keen these days with all sorts of things, not just music but particularly music, to claim that there are no parameters at all. But if you simply have no decisions at all then you completely destroy the point of having a different word for an art form and the point of attributing authorship to it. You cannot claim to be the composer of a piece of music you didn't actually in any way compose.
And as soon as you have composition - as soon as you have any kind of decisions and planning about how sounds are going to be generated - you have structure. You have parameters that have closed off certain sonic possibilities in favour of others.
And you also have the possibility of assessing a performer who is not improvising, composing music as they go, as having made mistakes in failing to follow with sufficient accuracy the pre-planned instructions.
Quote from: some guy on November 27, 2019, 01:03:33 AM
"what do people mean when they say 'structure'?"
Here's a piece of music with no structure, the harmonies and the rhythm seem random, as does the sequence of phrases and silences. Cage, Music of Changes, David Tudor at the piano.
https://www.youtube.com/v/B_8-B2rNw7s&t=147s
Quote from: jess on November 25, 2019, 04:57:42 PM
How do you define what sounds are organised by a human and what is not?
'
By checking out whether a human organised them. This isn't a difficult question unless you bend over backwards to make it one by pretending that the accidental side-effect of operating a jackhammer, noise, is the same thing as the planned goal of operating a jackhammer.
The sound of a jackhammer is only a component of music if someone decided that they wanted to hear the sound of a jackhammer, and weren't interested in breaking up some concrete.
Quote from: Mandryka on November 27, 2019, 01:34:22 AM
Here's a piece of music with no structure, the harmonies and the rhythm seem random, as does the sequence of phrases and silences. Cage, Music of Changes, David Tudor at the piano.
https://www.youtube.com/v/B_8-B2rNw7s&t=147s
On what basis do you say it has no structure? "Seeming" random is not a solid argument.
Either Cage is the composer or he isn't. Choose.
EDIT: In fact, some brief reading on
Music of Changes seems to indicate that the timing of phrases and silences and the rhythm is entirely determined by Cage in advance. His technique in composing is an entirely different question. The point is he wrote the results of his technique down just like any other composer, and created a series of instructions for later performers to follow.
More complicated things are going on in Cage's Four, where there does seem to be some sort of pattern of phrase lengths and pauses. I very much like Four.
https://www.youtube.com/v/_UsC2TBvGy8&feature=emb_logo
Quote from: Madiel on November 27, 2019, 01:36:42 AM
On what basis do you say it has no structure? "Seeming" random is not a solid argument.
Either Cage is the composer or he isn't. Choose.
EDIT: In fact, some brief reading on Music of Changes seems to indicate that the timing of phrases and silences and the rhythm is entirely determined by Cage in advance. His technique in composing is an entirely different question. The point is he wrote the results of his technique down just like any other composer, and created a series of instructions for later performers to follow.
True, but I believe
Mandryka's point is that some sort of structure does exist.
Quote from: Mandryka on November 27, 2019, 01:40:58 AM
More complicated things are going on in Cage's Four, where there does seem to be some sort of pattern of phrase lengths and pauses. I very much like Four.
Music theory derives from what composers create: I suspect that even the Neanderthal flute players had some sort of pattern in their music, well before any Neanderthal Professor X could expatiate about intervallic analysis. 8) ;)
Quote from: Madiel on November 27, 2019, 01:36:42 AMEither Cage is the composer or he isn't. Choose.
Um, no.
One of Cage's contributions to the conversation was to redefine what "composer" means. To open up the situation to collaboration, or, better, to acknowledge that collaborative nature of any human undertaking.
That is, to
re-establish what "composer" used to mean? One of the more frequently ignored aspects of what we now call "baroque" music is how improvisatory it was, with scores functioning more as mnemonics than as the detailed and exclusionary documents favored by Romantic composers, along with the absurdity of a written-out cadenza. (Here, you performers--improvise here by playing this bit just like you played all the other bits, note by written-down note, and nothing else!!)
So was Handel the composer or not? Choose!!
Quote from: Cato on November 27, 2019, 02:05:51 AM
True, but I believe Mandryka's point is that some sort of structure does exist.
I don't know why you believe that when his first sentence is: "Here's a piece of music with no structure."
Quote from: some guy on November 27, 2019, 02:07:31 AM
Um, no.
One of Cage's contributions to the conversation was to redefine what "composer" means. To open up the situation to collaboration, or, better, to acknowledge that collaborative nature of any human undertaking.
That is, to re-establish what "composer" used to mean? One of the more frequently ignored aspects of what we now call "baroque" music is how improvisatory it was, with scores functioning more as mnemonics than as the detailed and exclusionary documents favored by Romantic composers, along with the absurdity of a written-out cadenza. (Here, you performers--improvise here by playing this bit just like you played all the other bits, note by written-down note, and nothing else!!)
So was Handel the composer or not? Choose!!
You misunderstand my point entirely.
The answer is yes in both cases, and I've already explained why. And nothing I said is inconsistent with the way baroque composers gave more latitude to performers than Romantic ones did.
Because baroque composers might have been less exclusionary than Romantic ones, but they were nevertheless exclusionary. A baroque score is not a free-for-all that does not dictate in any way what sounds you produce while claiming to perform it. There are reasons why you can identify one sound recording as a performance of Handel's keyboard suite in D minor (HWV 437) and another sound recording as not a performance of it. The document is doing something to the sounds being generated. And if the document and the sounds don't match then someone will be along in the comments on Youtube to say "hey, that's not the piece you've said it is".
Quote from: Madiel on November 27, 2019, 02:13:15 AM
I don't know why you believe that when his first sentence is: "Here's a piece of music with no structure."
Because he tempered that with further qualifications.
Quote from: Madiel on November 27, 2019, 02:14:51 AM
You misunderstand my point entirely.
The answer is yes in both cases, and I've already explained why. And nothing I said is inconsistent with the way baroque composers gave more latitude to performers than Romantic ones did.
Because baroque composers might have been less exclusionary than Romantic ones, but they were nevertheless exclusionary. A baroque score is not a free-for-all that does not dictate in any way what sounds you produce while claiming to perform it. There are reasons why you can identify one sound recording as a performance of Handel's keyboard suite in D minor (HWV 437) and another sound recording as not a performance of it. The document is doing something to the sounds being generated. And if the document and the sounds don't match then someone will be along in the comments on Youtube to say "hey, that's not the piece you've said it is".
Very nice! An analogy: a performance of
Shakespeare in modern dress -and with e.g. American accents - would still be recognizable because the words would be the same. One can disagree with the method of performing the play, but the text is the same as one done in Elizabethan-era clothing and accents.
I was just thinking of certain reviews by critics from the past and present. Right now I cannot find an example but one often reads complaints about Pianist Wam-Bam Keyster or conductor Manny Jesters "losing sense of the structure" of a work and only "playing the notes" as if they were disconnected.
In fact, not too long ago, I came across a review of a performance of a Bruckner symphony somewhere, and the critic complained about the disconnected nature of the performance, and how nothing "hung together."
Certainly structure matters to those critics! 0:)
Quote from: Madiel on November 27, 2019, 01:35:50 AM
'
By checking out whether a human organised them. This isn't a difficult question unless you bend over backwards to make it one by pretending that the accidental side-effect of operating a jackhammer, noise, is the same thing as the planned goal of operating a jackhammer.
The sound of a jackhammer is only a component of music if someone decided that they wanted to hear the sound of a jackhammer, and weren't interested in breaking up some concrete.
I didn't realise there were any more Faust fans on here, although this may also appeal to the Dylan fans being one of his songs >:D.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Gl46QfR6wE
Quote from: Mandryka on November 27, 2019, 01:40:58 AM
More complicated things are going on in Cage's Four, where there does seem to be some sort of pattern of phrase lengths and pauses. I very much like Four.
https://www.youtube.com/v/_UsC2TBvGy8&feature=emb_logo
I like that, it's immersive, similar to Scelsi :).
Can you recognise this as a performance of The Goldberg Variations?
https://www.youtube.com/v/YPHuky0YOtg
Quote from: 2dogs on November 27, 2019, 09:29:45 AM
I like that, it's immersive, similar to Scelsi :).
I agree, I like it too
Quote from: Mandryka on November 27, 2019, 10:43:17 AM
Can you recognise this as a performance of The Goldberg Variations?
https://www.youtube.com/v/YPHuky0YOtg
Well I wouldn't :-[.
Quote from: Mandryka on November 27, 2019, 10:43:17 AM
Can you recognise this as a performance of The Goldberg Variations?
https://www.youtube.com/v/YPHuky0YOtg
Yes, within in a matter of seconds, and I don't know the Goldberg Variations very well. But clearly someone is attempting to play the Goldberg theme.
What are you trying to say? That someone mangling "To be or not to be" would demonstrate that Shakespeare didn't actually write Hamlet?
Quote from: Mandryka on November 27, 2019, 10:43:17 AM
Can you recognise this as a performance of The Goldberg Variations?
https://www.youtube.com/v/YPHuky0YOtg
Quote from: 2dogs on November 27, 2019, 10:51:29 AM
Well I wouldn't :-[.
Quote from: Madiel on November 27, 2019, 12:38:46 PM
Yes, within in a matter of seconds, and I don't know the Goldberg Variations very well. But clearly someone is attempting to play the Goldberg theme.
As played by
Anton Von Webern? ;)
One of the YouTube comments - by the performer - says it is being done in the "
cantabile" style which "Bach intended." ???
To be sure, I am not an expert by any means on 17th-18th century performance style, and I listened to the opening 5 minutes. But my first impression is that here we have an example of a performer playing the notes and ignoring the work's structure. However, I am now intrigued, and must listen to this much more...if only to give it a fair hearing. 8)
I'd like to take this in a slightly different direction by suggesting there are not just two ways of experiencing 'structure' but potentially three.
Consciously being aware a composition is structured.
Being aware of structure but experiencing it mainly analytically as would an academic musicologist.
Experiencing on an emotional level the effect of structure without knowing or analysing how this is accomplished.
The first and second may happen simultaneously, the last necessarily alone.
The question is can we know why a composer structured a work as they did? To comply with the fashions/academic dictates of the day?
To accomplish a dramatic effect?
Without any deliberate 'sticking to the rules' with structure arrising ( searching for the right word here) almost impetuously?
How much any of this matters though could be more due to subjectivity than anything else I suspect.
I recall for instance in my youth eagerly awaiting structural shift in, say, a sonata without any knowledge whatsover such was a 'thing'.
Quite a bit of music has a structure based on frequencies of sounds. There's a home key, the music moves away from that key like someone on a journey, maybe after some "adventures" it comes home, maybe not, maybe changed, maybe not. This is I guess a narrative structure.
Cage talks as though he wants to investigate a different basis for musical structures, music structured by duration rather than frequency. I've been listening to The Music of Changes IV with this in mind, but I'm getting nowhere. I've also been listening to the second part (lent) of the Barraqué sonata, because I remembered that it made very effective use of silence which seemed to give a structure to the music - I'm not sure really about that. I'm not having much luck with post war music today!
Quote from: Cato on November 27, 2019, 12:39:29 PM
As played by Anton Von Webern? ;)
One of the YouTube comments - by the performer - says it is being done in the "cantabile" style which "Bach intended." ???
To be sure, I am not an expert by any means on 17th-18th century performance style, and I listened to the opening 5 minutes. But my first impression is that here we have an example of a performer playing the notes and ignoring the work's structure. However, I am now intrigued, and must listen to this much more...if only to give it a fair hearing. 8)
I like it very much! On the Bach composer thread here I posted something about what he means by cantabile style, with a question, only yesterday.
For me it's a great way to play the music because the life, the drama, comes from deep within the music, from the interaction of all the inner voices.
Quote from: Mandryka on November 27, 2019, 01:59:11 PM
Quite a bit of music has a structure based on frequencies of sounds. There's a home key, the music moves away from that key like someone on a journey, maybe after some "adventures" it comes home, maybe not, maybe changed, maybe not. This is I guess a narrative structure.
Often I find with non-classical music key changes are so unresloved and unexpected they set my teeth on edge; an instantaneous reaction without needing anything like conscious thought let alone theorising. Simply the shock of the unfamiliar or something more innate in our species? Atonalism for some reason doesn't challenge me this way, maybe because there's no unambiguous key in operation to be dumped without warning?
Quote from: Mandryka on November 27, 2019, 01:59:11 PM
I like it very much! On the Bach composer thread here I posted something about what he means by cantabile style, with a question, only yesterday.
For me it's a great way to play the music because the life, the drama, comes from deep within the music, from the interaction of all the inner voices.
In my ignorance I have not been prejudiced by expectation and I find this quite interesting, the way the energy flows between the lower and higher voices, one speeding up, playing more notes, while the other slows down, then they swap over again.
Quote from: 2dogs on November 27, 2019, 07:49:31 PM
In my ignorance I have not been prejudiced by expectation and I find this quite interesting, the way the energy flows between the lower and higher voices, one speeding up, playing more notes, while the other slows down, then they swap over again.
Bravo for ignorance ! ! !
Quote from: dissily Mordentroge on November 27, 2019, 04:58:22 PM
Often I find with non-classical music key changes are so unresloved and unexpected they set my teeth on edge; an instantaneous reaction without needing anything like conscious thought let alone theorising. Simply the shock of the unfamiliar or something more innate in our species?
I like that, it comes across to me as a feeling of energy.
Quote from: dissily Mordentroge on November 27, 2019, 01:28:22 PM
I'd like to take this in a slightly different direction by suggesting there are not just two ways of experiencing 'structure' but potentially three.
Consciously being aware a composition is structured.
Being aware of structure but experiencing it mainly analytically as would an academic musicologist.
Experiencing on an emotional level the effect of structure without knowing or analysing how this is accomplished.
The first and second may happen simultaneously, the last necessarily alone.
I just enjoy the experience of listening to the sounds really. As I become more familiar with a piece I'll start to learn bits that repeat, vary, contrast and so on but haven't the faintest idea about academic concepts like basing a composition on someone's initials.
Quote from: 2dogs on November 27, 2019, 09:24:12 PM
I just enjoy the experience of listening to the sounds really. As I become more familiar with a piece I'll start to learn bits that repeat, vary, contrast and so on but haven't the faintest idea about academic concepts like basing a composition on someone's initials.
And you don't have to. No more than I have to understand advanced cooking techniques to enjoy a meal.
Understanding the structure of a piece of music is arguably fairly important for performing it, but I wouldn't say it's needed for listening to it (just as I would hope a cook understands a recipe they're following, but I don't need to read the recipe before eating).
Quote from: Madiel on November 27, 2019, 11:03:30 PM
And you don't have to. No more than I have to understand advanced cooking techniques to enjoy a meal.
Understanding the structure of a piece of music is arguably fairly important for performing it, but I wouldn't say it's needed for listening to it (just as I would hope a cook understands a recipe they're following, but I don't need to read the recipe before eating).
When
Mrs. Cato heard the opening seconds of
Bach's Goldberg Variations offered above, she was quite positive about it, and then after a minute or so, she was enthusiastic about it. As I wrote above, my initial reaction was puzzlement at the interpretation ("performed by
Anton von Webern"), but I am looking forward very much now to hearing the entire work! 8)
Quote from: Cato on November 28, 2019, 06:16:20 AM
but I am looking forward very much now to hearing the entire work! 8)
My advice is not to try to listen to it all at once, I might listen to one half at a time or even just up to a couple of the canons. Colin Booth's Goldbergs, which are also well worth a listen, respond to this sort of treatment I think.
Quote from: Cato on November 28, 2019, 06:16:20 AM
When Mrs. Cato heard the opening seconds of Bach's Goldberg Variations offered above, she was quite positive about it, and then after a minute or so, she was enthusiastic about it. As I wrote above, my initial reaction was puzzlement at the interpretation ("performed by Anton von Webern"), but I am looking forward very much now to hearing the entire work! 8)
Those
Wolfgang Rubsam recordings on lute-harpsichord have been discussed on GMG quite a bit. He has recorded most of the major keyboard works in the last few years in the same manner, which in his booklet essay he says was a result of examining the original manuscripts. He concluded that because Bach did not align the musical lines vertically that it implied an asynchronous method of playing the counterpoint.
While I do enjoy these recordings, I grow tired of his interpretation after about 30 minutes, and remain unconvinced of his argument. But the jury is still out.
8)
Quote from: San Antone on November 28, 2019, 06:31:25 AM
Those Wolfgang Rubsam recordings on lute-harpsichord have been discussed on GMG quite a bit. He has recorded most of the major keyboard works in the last few years in the same manner, which in his booklet essay he says was a result of examining the original manuscripts. He concluded that because Bach did not align the musical lines vertically that it implied an asynchronous method of playing the counterpoint.
And the letter from Friedrich Griepenkerl
QuoteBach himself, his sons, and Forkel played the masterpieces with such a profound declamation that they sounded like polyphonic songs sung by individual great artist singers. Thereby, all means of good singing were brought into use. No cercare, No portamento was missing, even breathing was in all the right places. Bach's music wants to be sung with the maximum of art.
Quote from: Mandryka on November 28, 2019, 07:09:16 AM
And the letter from Friedrich Griepenkerl
cercare, in Italian, means search, to search, searching. I am not sure how this translates into a musical application - but the text you quoted would otherwise seem to support
Rubsam's approach to some degree. Whether or not Rubsam's example is an exaggerated manner of playing Bach in the way indicated in the text quoted from the letter, we will never know.
Quote from: San Antone on November 28, 2019, 12:48:37 PM
cercare, in Italian, means search, to search, searching. I am not sure how this translates into a musical application - but the text you quoted would otherwise seem to support Rubsam's approach to some degree. Whether or not Rubsam's example is an exaggerated manner of playing Bach in the way indicated in the text quoted from the letter, we will never know.
Indeed. But I do like what he does more and more not less and less. It's true that I don't listen to it for more than half an hour at a time, but that's true of all of them if I'm not a concert.
I kind of appreciate that Rubsam Goldberg, it's better than hearing it played the same way every time. This is also why I like Vartolo in Bach and Froberger, he lets the notes "breathe" in an interesting way. But I also love Scott Ross, so I guess I'm just into the thing one way or another.
Quote from: San Antone on November 25, 2019, 02:29:34 AM
... IMO, there two defining aspects of music: 1) organization of sound and 2) an intention to create music, both accomplished by a human being(s).
Is there no music in birdsong?
The readily-identifiable descending cadence of the cuckoo has been appropriated by Beethoven, Delius and many other composers wishing to evoke the rural idyll. Though why we get sentimental feelings over this arch-criminal among birds beats me.
I like the blackbird better. I can and do sit for an hour or more listening to a blackbird, given the opportunity. It stimulates my mind in exactly the same way that keyboard music by Bach does***. The blackbird never quite repeats itself. It has a few stock riffs and trills that it favours (different individual birds favour different phrases), and permutates and adds unique transitional notes each time, so that my expectations are always confounded. It is also usually responding to one or more other nearby blackbirds, imitating and augmenting their song. So arguably it is just making conversation. But to me it sounds intensely musical.
I agree with
amw and others - structure may be important, possibly near-essential, to the composer, it may also interest the academic, the performer or anyone reading the score - but it isn't essential for the listener to appreciate it, except maybe in those limited musical forms which are predicated on structure, such as Classical sonata form - but they are a very small subset of music as a whole.
But even when listening to Haydn, as a listener I prefer the analogy of walking along a patterned carpet, which is unrolling in front of me and rolling up behind me. Thus I am listening 'in the moment' but with some element of expectations being raised and met or confounded. But that's just me, and I expect educated 18thC concert-goers were different.
I also think there's some confusion/crossover between 'structure' and 'organisation' in this thread. To me, 'structure' operates on the macro level - for example the symmetry (I'll avoid the word 'arch') of Mahler's 7th. Instrumental timbre, and simple cadences, are organisation. Riffs and grounds may be either. Bricks laid in Flemish bond are 'organised' - lots of them and you get a wall - 'structure'.
One structural analogy that is often used, that personally I find very unhelpful, is that of the arch. I cannot relate the visual experience of an arch, stable and static as it is**, with anything that I hear in music. You see both legs of an arch simultaneously. In music with a symmetrical structure, the first leg is past and gone, the second is as yet unknown. It's completely different.
** yes I know that the actual dynamics of an arch are anything but stable and static - but that's the visual impression.
*** actually, I have often experimented with combining them - by sitting in a location with lots of birdsong (my garden, or an Alpine meadow) - and playing music on open-backed headphones. I usually find time and space to do this when on holiday.