Unpopular Opinions

[Ken B]

Holy fuck!

I just had Itunes on shuffle, then Tracees by Xenakis came on, then I had all these teenage memories flooding back to me. What's happened to me, why can't I have that enthusiasm I once had for Xenakis back? 

You have just learned a lesson about nostalgia and "the good old days".  but 

[TheGSMoeller]

You have just learned a lesson about nostalgia and "the good old days".  but 

Oh yeah, I get that feeling when I hear If You Leave by Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark.

[TheGSMoeller]

I must have been really tired when I posted that because it was meant to go in the "Pieces that have recently blown you away" thread   

Oh, I thought this was the "Unpopular Opinions That Have Recently Blown You Away" thread. 

[Madiel]

Dvorak's opus numbers are important and useful.

[Jaakko Keskinen]

Dvorak's tone poems are underrated.

[Madiel]

Dvorak's tone poems are underrated.

I think my opinion is more unpopular than your opinion. 

[millionrainbows]

I'm in agreement with "The Six"'s OP way back 123 pages ago. The diatonic era is boring. But I have found a workaround: verticality. I now view the fragmented motives and rhythmic fragments of Beethoven's attempts at melodicism, which he sequences through the levels of the boring diatonic scale, to be simply the artifacts of his real goal: vertical elaboration of harmonic stations. He muscles his way, via propulsive rhythms, "forward" into a supposedly horizontal narrative development, while all the time his only interest is THE BIG NOTE. Must have been that incessant ringing in his ears.
Bach is a much better melodist, and harmonically interesting as well, but there are no really weird or chromatic mediant shifts there. By the time Beethoven gets to the Ninth, the chromatic submediant movement by thirds is in full bloom. The roots of the chords create a melody, or at least outline chord arpeggios.

If I want horizontal melodies and development, with Beethoven-like craftsmanship, I'll go to the Boccherini string quartets. But they're a little boring by comparison. At least Beethoven was trying to get out of the box.

[71 dB]

I'm in agreement with "The Six"'s OP way back 123 pages ago.

Wow, that was a delayed response if I ever saw one!

[Jo498]

The problem with the idea that the classical era is "boring" is that most of the supposedly less boring composers of the 19th century from Beethoven and Schubert through Mahler thorougly admired the Viennese classicist composers and emulated many features of their music. This would be a very curious thing if this music was really boring. How can it be boring and still have been so inspiring and apparently worthy of admiration by supposedly "more advanced", "less boring" composers?

[71 dB]

The problem with the idea that the classical era is "boring" is that most of the supposedly less boring composers of the 19th century from Beethoven and Schubert through Mahler thorougly admired the Viennese classicist composers and emulated many features of their music. This would be a very curious thing if this music was really boring. How can it be boring and still have been so inspiring and apparently worthy of admiration by supposedly "more advanced", "less boring" composers?

If someone finds diatonic era boring it means that someone finds diatonic era boring.

Diatonic era doesn't have an objective level of boredom.

Beethoven could not compare his own music to music composed after his death. We can, almost 200 years worth.

We are spoiled badly, because our access to art and entertainment is so limitless these days. No wonder if we get bored so easily.

Eras that someone might find boring hundreds of years later might be necessory phases in art.

[Jo498]

And how is most of the baroque not "diatonic"?

[71 dB]

The problem with the idea that the classical era is "boring" is that it is solid bullshit, that's the problem.

No, the reality is we have ~7 billion opinions about the issue. Being boring is not an objective property. The amount of megapixels in a digital camera is an objectice property. Saying classical era is boring is similar to saying liquorice tastes bad.

Here is one unpopular opionion: Our tastes are much more arbitrary and irrational than we think, but we can't help it much. Changing our tastes requires a lot of work and time, so we pretty much must live with the tastes we have and that's ok because we are human beings.

All opinions are bullshit though, aren't they?

No. Many opinions are enlightened, rational and rooted in experiences and facts. Here are some very good opinions:

- All people are equal
- Deities do not most probably exist
- The real part of all non-trivial zeros of Riemann's zeta function is 1/2*
- Climate chance is true and a gigantic problem to mankind

* If you can prove this is a FACT you get a million dollars.  0:)

[71 dB]

And how is most of the baroque not "diatonic"?

I'm curious to hear how baroque diatonic is different from classical diatonic because I am idiot when it comes to music theory... 

[Karl Henning]

If someone finds diatonic era boring it means that someone finds diatonic era boring.

Diatonic era doesn't have an objective level of boredom.

Very sensible.

[Karl Henning]

All opinions are bullshit though, aren't they?

Well done, sir.

[Jo498]

I'm curious to hear how baroque diatonic is different from classical diatonic because I am idiot when it comes to music theory... 

I agree. This was precisely my point.
It does not make a lot of sense to describe the classical period as "diatonic" because while true this is not distinctive of that period because holds for most of the baroque as well, also for quite a bit of romantic and pre-baroque music.

[millionrainbows]

I'm interested in masses, too: masses of sound, like in Varese! Ba-da-bing!

Diatonic is limiting, for one. Seven notes out of a possible 12: I'll score it a "7" on the boring graph.

Of course, 12 notes can begin to get boring as well, if they are circulated evenly. What keeps Western tonality from descending into boring-ness is it's B-F tritone, which adds dissonance and instability. Then we can explore all 12 notes, eventually.

Poor Beethoven, struggling in the Hammerklavier, the Ninth, and the Late Quartets to try and escape from diatonicism. He did it by thirds. He never was much of a melodist, according to Bernstein, but what does he know?

[Ken B]

Shakespeare doesn't use Q enough. I give him 25 out of 26 on the boring scale.

[millionrainbows]

Shakespeare had to compose to create any kind of story, mood, or setting. Tonalities are determined pre-compositionally, using scales. I think that tonalities contribute a lot to whatever is created compositionally. The tonality is like a harmonic template.

I suppose Shakespeare could have done the same thing pre-compositionally if he had decided to use only 15 of the 26 letters. But I think it would be much richer and interesting if he used all 26.

[Ken B]

You know what's a boring set? The Cantor set.




Bonus points for explaining the joke