Saul's Music Space

[Luke]

Saul,

I apologise for making the assumption in other posts that all your music is notated in 4/4 simply because that's what your computer automatically does, even if the sense of the music is something else.

Because that F major piece you just posted is notated in 3/4. Great!

Trouble is, this time it actually is in 4/4, and very clearly.

Listen along to it counting 3, then 4. Or just look at the music, in fact, the way the left hand quarter/half notes are grouped in 2 and 4 beat patterns (forcibly tied across barlines in order to be fitted into your 3/4 metre)

It's rankly awful, obvious mistakes like that which make me take with a huge pinch of salt these positive critiques you describe from elsewhere. They are either

1) your embellishments of the truth
2) the result of someone wanting to spare your feelings (well, I can understand that)
or
3) the result of the person whose judgement you've sought not being as good a musician as you think or as you describe.

Because, honestly, for a  pianst (student? teacher?) at Juilliard not to comment on this basic problem in your notation speaks very, very badly for Juilliard, if it is really true.

The sound of the piece, btw, as far as I listened (a page and a bit) is much nicer than the B minor piece, I think. It's not like you don't have some nice ideas in there...

[Luke]

Hmm, didn't get what happens in bar 16 though...

[Saul]

Saul,

I apologise for making the assumption in other posts that all your music is notated in 4/4 simply because that's what your computer automatically does, even if the sense of the music is something else.

Because that F major piece you just posted is notated in 3/4. Great!

Trouble is, this time it actually is in 4/4, and very clearly.

Listen along to it counting 3, then 4. Or just look at the music, in fact, the way the left hand quarter/half notes are grouped in 2 and 4 beat patterns (forcibly tied across barlines in order to be fitted into your 3/4 metre)

It's rankly awful, obvious mistakes like that which make me take with a huge pinch of salt these positive critiques you describe from elsewhere. They are either

1) your embellishments of the truth
2) the result of someone wanting to spare your feelings (well, I can understand that)
or
3) the result of the person whose judgement you've sought not being as good a musician as you think or as you describe.

Because, honestly, for a  pianst (student? teacher?) at Juilliard not to comment on this basic problem in your notation speaks very, very badly for Juilliard, if it is really true.

The sound of the piece, btw, as far as I listened (a page and a bit) is much nicer than the B minor piece, I think. It's not like you don't have some nice ideas in there...

Why don't you just send him a note and ask him about his meeting with Saul Dzorelashvili and about this two particular works.

He liked them alote and took both scores from me to show to his Professor in Juilliard.
He is powerful virtuoso pianist and a first rate music reader, and he used to teach in Juilliard.

That jest about modern atonal music was about music that I didn't like, therefore I created something that will generate a powerful discussion about music.

But I never joke about my music, I take my art very seriously, otherwise I wont be spending so much time, and energy for something that I didn't feel so passionate about.

[Saul]

You appear to be the proud manipulator.  Perhaps all your past religious pronouncements are also pure garbage.  At any rate, your words just blow in the wind, and there's no reason to believe anything you say.

There is no reason to be nasty, I didn't mean it to come out this way, and people actually feeling bad about this. I did it in good faith, and even Luke thanked me for having such a great time with this thread. You know 'fun' is a great thing sometimes.

That jest about modern atonal music was about music that I didn't like, therefore I created something that will generate a powerful discussion about music.

But I never joke about my music, I take my art very seriously, otherwise I wont be spending so much time, and energy for something that I didn't feel so passionate about.

[Luke]

Then, please, please, Saul, do yourself a favour, stop being so pig-headed with honestly given criticism of your pieces. It doesn't matter to me what your pianist friend said, if he didn't mention to you that you had written a piece that should have been in 4/4 in 3/4 then the comments he made have utterly no credibility in my mind - it's such a basic error, and it isn't a matter of opinion, it's pure simple musical fact.

But you see, I know it seems as if I am being very harsh, but I honestly wish you would take this stuff on board. Learn to notate better. It isn't really hard. Learn to think about the shape of your tunes - that F major piece has a nice basic line3 spoilt by some awkward jumps which you really didn't need to make, and which, again, go against basic classical rules of melody construction. Again, easy to solve. With a few tweaks you could have quite a nice piece there, but details are important, Saul, and in a very friendly spirit I recommend that you take constructive critical advice when it is offered instead of only paying attention to people who, for whatever reason, don't see fit to point out the errors.

[Luke]

There is no reason to be nasty, I didn't mean it to come out this way, and people actually feeling bad about this. I did it in good faith, and even Luke thanked me for having such a great time with this thread....

not quite - I thanked you for making me laugh, but not in the way you intended; the joke itself was painfully unfunny. I thanked you because your mockingly atonal pieces weren't actually atonal, which I did find funny.

Your purpose in doing what you are doing, though, elludes and annoys me as much as it does everyone else, and, given your record for backtracking when in a corner, I am not inclined to believe that you didn't mean every word of what you said and are merely making an effort to wriggle free, I'm sorry to say.

[Saul]

Then, please, please, Saul, do yourself a favour, stop being so pig-headed with honestly given criticism of your pieces. It doesn't matter to me what your pianist friend said, if he didn't mention to you that you had written a piece that should have been in 4/4 in 3/4 then the comments he made have utterly no credibility in my mind - it's such a basic error, and it isn't a matter of opinion, it's pure simple musical fact.

But you see, I know it seems as if I am being very harsh, but I honestly wish you would take this stuff on board. Learn to notate better. It isn't really hard. Learn to think about the shape of your tunes - that F major piece has a nice basic line3 spoilt by some awkward jumps which you really didn't need to make, and which, again, go against basic classical rules of melody construction. Again, easy to solve. With a few tweaks you could have quite a nice piece there, but details are important, Saul, and in a very friendly spirit I recommend that you take constructive critical advice when it is offered instead of only paying attention to people who, for whatever reason, don't see fit to point out the errors.

I accept what you say, that this piece can be made better, you didn't say anything awful.
But you need to also accept that you are not the only person in the world that understands music and notation.  Other educated and accomplished musicians did find something good about my music, especially this pianist, who never was my friend, I just met him through the web and decided to meet in Juilliard.  We are both Israeli, so we had something in common, but he wasn't my 'friend' per say. And when he had to say his criticism, he didn't dress it in beauty and in manners, he said it very openly, and actually I was pretty upset after the meeting, cause before back then I was younger and had higher expectations, and he put me on my place. He told me that I need to study more harmony and to polish my skills in compositions. This is not such a 'nice' or 'welcoming' feeling when someone tells you this but he did. But on the other hand this wonderful musician was impressed by some of my piano works and took a few to show to his Professor. Also he didn't say that I should go down the 'Atonal Road', and encouraged me to continue with the 'Classical Style', and if you were listening to how people here have completely crushed this notion, like if anyone will compose in this classical style there will be nothing for him in music, you might of thought that they know what they were talking about. That's their opinion, there's nothing wrong with stating an opinion, but you and others should know that there are other opinions in this world, which hold no less value then yours.

Now if you want to trash this pianist because he disagrees with you on a number of points, that's your choice, but remember be careful from sounding strange...

It really doesn't look good when others are trashed if they don't agree with your version of how things are or how they should be.

[Saul]

not quite - I thanked you for making me laugh, but not in the way you intended; the joke itself was painfully unfunny. I thanked you because your mockingly atonal pieces weren't actually atonal, which I did find funny.

Your purpose in doing what you are doing, though, elludes and annoys me as much as it does everyone else, and, given your record for backtracking when in a corner, I am not inclined to believe that you didn't mean every word of what you said and are merely making an effort to wriggle free, I'm sorry to say.

You really believed me  when I said that all composers after Grieg wrote 'worthless music'?

Am I that influential and good in making people believe stuff?

Maybe I'm in the wrong business, perhaps politics will suit me better.

[Luke]

As I say, I have no idea about this man, nothing other than what you tell us. If he is as good a musician as you say, then he will certainly have spotted the error I pointed out. It is very obvious, and it's the kind of thing that isn't a matter of opinion - if I say, simply, 'I am right' about this, it isn't arrogance, it's because it's a 2+2=4 matter: the piece simply should not be written in 3/4 and that's the end of it.

So, given that fact, there are really only two options - he spotted it and didn't tell you (which ought to make you think, why? was he trying to spare your feelings? what else didn't he say?). Or, he didn't spot it - in which case, there is nothing you can say that will convince me that he is as good a musician as you claim.

OTOH, you say he told you to study harmony and composing skills more - maybe he meant things like this too, under that heading, and just didn't comment specifically on this one error, glaring though it is. I wholeheartedly agree with him, in that case. The 'atonal road' isn't for you,  that is clear, because you seem to dislike it so much. So take his advice, and my advice, and Sforzando's (he used to be a composer too, back in the day...) and Karl's (I assume) and improve those basic skills. It shouldn't take you long, not if you are as committed and passionate about this as you say you are - and that's the one thing I do believe, 100%. Things like the time signatures, the enharmonic nonsense, the voice writing, the rhythmic side-slips which you surely don't mean....they could all be sorted out in a few hours work, and your music would be improved vastly. The melodic problems....they might take a little longer, I think, that's a harder thing to learn, but it's not impossible at all.

I'm saying this in order to help, Saul, I promise you.

[Saul]

As I say, I have no idea about this man, nothing other than what you tell us. If he is as good a musician as you say, then he will certainly have spotted the error I pointed out. It is very obvious, and it's the kind of thing that isn't a matter of opinion - if I say, simply, 'I am right' about this, it isn't arrogance, it's because it's a 2+2=4 matter: the piece simply should not be written in 3/4 and that's the end of it.

So, given that fact, there are really only two options - he spotted it and didn't tell you (which ought to make you think, why? was he trying to spare your feelings? what else didn't he say?). Or, he didn't spot it - in which case, there is nothing you can say that will convince me that he is as good a musician as you claim.

OTOH, you say he told you to study harmony and composing skills more - maybe he meant things like this too, under that heading, and just didn't comment specifically on this one error, glaring though it is. I wholeheartedly agree with him, in that case. The 'atonal road' isn't for you,  that is clear, because you seem to dislike it so much. So take his advice, and my advice, and Sforzando's (he used to be a composer too, back in the day...) and Karl's (I assume) and improve those basic skills. It shouldn't take you long, not if you are as committed and passionate about this as you say you are - and that's the one thing I do believe, 100%. Things like the time signatures, the enharmonic nonsense, the voice writing, the rhythmic side-slips which you surely don't mean....they could all be sorted out in a few hours work, and your music would be improved vastly. The melodic problems....they might take a little longer, I think, that's a harder thing to learn, but it's not impossible at all.

I'm saying this in order to help, Saul, I promise you.

Read his site and look up his page on the Juilliard school of music. He took this work to show to his professor that's how impressed he was.

http://www.eliranavni.com/

[Luke]

You really believed me  when I said that all composers after Grieg wrote 'worthless music'?

Am I that influential and good in making people believe stuff?

I think it's more that, after years of seeing you post the most bizarre stuff here, nothing you say surprises us any more. Saying 'that all composers after Grieg wrote 'worthless music'' is indeed an utterly stupid thing to say - but you have proved in the past that the stupidity of a statment is no barrier to you making it.  So we believed you. And some of us still do, perhaps.

[Franco]

I know of Eliran Avni, he is an Israeli pianist and a very good musician.  But, I doubt he would have said anything that would have embarrassed an aspiring composer showing him a composition, although I am sure he was aware of the fact that the piece is clearly in 4/4 but notated in 3/4.

Saul, if you are serious about composing, find a good teacher  - as it says in Pirkei Avot, although there they are taking about a rabbi, but the same applies concerning learning composition.  That is, if you are serious.

[Saul]

I think it's more that, after years of seeing you post the most bizarre stuff here, nothing you say surprises us any more. Saying 'that all composers after Grieg wrote 'worthless music'' is indeed an utterly stupid thing to say - but you have proved in the past that the stupidity of a statment is no barrier to you making it.  So we believed you. And some of us still do, perhaps.

LOL!

I'M RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT!

CHANGE WE COME TO BELIEVE IN!

[Saul]

I know of Eliran Avni, he is an Israeli pianist and a very good musician.  But, I doubt he would have said anything that would have embarrassed an aspiring composer showing him a composition, although I am sure he was aware of the fact that the piece is clearly in 4/4 but notated in 3/4.

Saul, if you are serious about composing, find a good teacher  - as it says in Pirkei Avot, although there they are taking about a rabbi, but the same applies concerning learning composition.  That is, if you are serious.

Actually he did say a number of things that embarrassed me very much, like his insistence on talking to me about the cycle of fifths on the harmony of my Prelude In G minor. He said that certain things in the harmony need to be revised. Yes I was embarrassed and had to take the criticism.
Yes I'm learning theory by myself, and perhaps will find a good harmony teacher down the road in the future.

[Luke]

Are you still not going to take it on board, Saul? You really do have your head in the sand, don't you - you are being offered good advice that will improve your compositions (by this pianist too, it seems), and you don't want to take it. I won't bother anymore, I think. I've spent a lot of effort trying to give you good, detailed advice the last couple of days, without the slightest sign that you've even read it. You would clearly rather stumble on writing music that is, I'm sorry to say, written in the most totally illiterate manner I have ever seen outside my beginner level theory students. That's not opinion, that - just fact, according to the 'rules' of classical music theory you claim to hold dear.

[Saul]

Are you still not going to take it on board, Saul? You really do have your head in the sand, don't you - you are being offered good advice that will improve your compositions (by this pianist too, it seems), and you don't want to take it. I won't bother anymore, I think. I've spent a lot of effort trying to give you good, detailed advice the last couple of days, without the slightest sign that you've even read it. You would clearly rather stumble on writing music that is, I'm sorry to say, written in the most totally illiterate manner I have ever seen outside my beginner level theory students. That's not opinion, that - just fact, according to the 'rules' of classical music theory you claim to hold dear.

I don't know why you said that, when I clearly said that I take your criticism about this work. Look on top on the thread above, I have said it. So please  don't be mean. There is no need to be mean and aggressive. The point I was making is that you guys made it as if my music has nothing good in it, written in the worst style and skill. This is not the case, as suggested by this Pianist who took a number of my works to show his professor in Juilliard.

[Saul]

In the interests of illumination I printed your sample out and sightread it into a microphone. Sightread it, you understand....all starts out nice and easy, Karl, and then I turned the page to see all these arabesques I wasn't expecting, and just had to grit my teeth and plough through them! It's also at a very low bitrate so that it fits within the 500kb attachment limit. So this is scarcely even an approximation of your piece, and I apologise fully. I will delete it if you'd prefer! But perhaps it might serve a purpose just for this thread.

Hey Luke,

I would like you to explain what's your position about Karl's piece.
What did you find baroque in it if you did?

[Luke]

I don't know why you said that, when I clearly said that I take your criticism about this work. Look on top on the thread above, I have said it. So please  don't be mean. There is no need to be mean and aggressive. The point I was making s that you guys made it as if my music has nothing good in it, written in the worst style and skill. This is not the case, as suggested by this Pianist who took a number of my works to show his professor in Juilliard.

No, Saul, I'm not being mean - look at my posts just above, where I say I am offering you constructive criticism in a friendly way; and look at the time I have spent trying to write things that will help you, including making little image files in one post, recording a piece of Karl's in another, and so on. Far too long actually - I am hours behind with the work I should be doing tonight! So I'd say I've been very generous, and the 'meanness', if any, has come from you not even appearing to have read any of these posts, and appearing to dismiss honestly offered criticism and refuse well-meant advice.

I did in fact say, repeatedly, in the last few posts, that there is good stuff hiding in your pieces, and that what you need is better technique in order to make that stuff reveal itself and to write music which has a more logical flow. So much for skill - you need more of it, but you can acquire it of you are prepared to work at it and not just talk about it.

As far as style goes - I don't, personally, think that writing in that style nowadays really works. You are, it seems to me, a textbook case of why it doesn't, because you have absorbed some of the surface features of music-as-it-was-200-years-ago but of course you haven't been brought up with the principles of tonal composition, sonata dialectic etc in your blood (because you weren't born 200 years ago), hence the disjunction between the style you are aiming at and what you are actually writing. But in principle I have no problem with you doing it if you wish to, and nor would I have a right to. 

[Saul]

No, Saul, I'm not being mean - look at my posts just above, where I say I am offering you constructive criticism in a friendly way; and look at the time I have spent trying to write things that will help you, including making little image files in one post, recording a piece of Karl's in another, and so on. Far too long actually - I am hours behind with the work I should be doing tonight! So I'd say I've been very generous, and the 'meanness', if any, has come from you not even appearing to have read any of these posts, and appearing to dismiss honestly offered criticism and refuse well-meant advice.

I did in fact say, repeatedly, in the last few posts, that there is good stuff hiding in your pieces, and that what you need is better technique in order to make that stuff reveal itself and to write music which has a more logical flow. So much for skill - you need more of it, but you can acquire it of you are prepared to work at it and not just talk about it.

As far as style goes - I don't, personally, think that writing in that style nowadays really works. You are, it seems to me, a textbook case of why it doesn't, because you have absorbed some of the surface features of music-as-it-was-200-years-ago but of course you haven't been brought up with the principles of tonal composition, sonata dialectic etc in your blood (because you weren't born 200 years ago), hence the disjunction between the style you are aiming at and what you are actually writing. But in principle I have no problem with you doing it if you wish to, and nor would I have a right to.

Actually I'm open to look into more modern avenues of expressions in music. This site and yours and other people's comments have influenced me and I did read what you posted and I do appreciate them.

What I was upset about was the statement of almost an irrefutable fact by some posters here that writing today in the classical style of the past is a lost case, and shouldn't be produced in order to be taken seriously.

I therefore brought an example of a noted musician, an accomplished pianist that believes that there is nothing wrong in continuing writing in the old style, and he didn't discourage me to go down the traditional path of writing music. Therefore clearly there is not a unison of thought and opinion about this matter, this is controversial  by every standard. I just  wanted to make this clear.

Also the amount of information that I have learned from posting here about different topics in music, is totally amazing and I really appreciate this.

Looking forward discussing more music with everyone here...

[Luke]

Hey Luke,

I would like you to explain what's your position about Karl's piece.
What did you find baroque in it if you did?

Plenty.

As Karl said, it's not baroque pastiche, of course not, just as the piece of mine that I posted isn't pastiche. It is - they are - both informed by the baroque, but they don't intend stopping there. In a very real sense, the way in which baroque features are viewed through a modern prism in Karl's piece makes it a much more vital, alive piece than your B minor one, I think, even though yours is generally faster, louder etc. I love the way Karl has run with the idea of a baroque walking bass, just tilting it onto its side (metaphorically speaking) so that it becomes something else entirely, something alive and speaking, whilst at the same time still remaining recognisable rooted to that ancestral basso continuo line (cello pizz.?). Similarly, I love the way Karl takes that little incipit, with its fairly straightforward baroque ornamentation, and lets it fly (I didn't like it when I was sightreading it, mind!). The complexities mount, the tuplets become more complex, the figurations more tricky; from the baroque the line takes on shades of (say) Eastern European folk singing, complete with glottal stops and ululations. Karl is always very good at riding that tightrope, I think, where his lines seem to be poised between two or more things, stylistically, historically, geographically - Bach, Hindemith, folk song, Finnissy (yes, there's lots here in Karl's way with ornamenting a melody that reminds me of Finnissy's incomparable skill at that job)..... are these all here, for starters. It makes for a very allusive and rich listening (and playing) experience.

You see - that's what happens when a composer is not simply aiming at pastiche, but is able to draw on a range of repertoires, baroque being only the most obvious one here, is able to 'speak' fluently and personally in them, and is able skillfully to bring them into meaningful relationship to each other. It can only come with openness to a variety of musics, though.