Shadowwolf3689

I like almost all contemporary music. But I mean, I like almost all music in general; in cases where I find myself bored or indifferent, I still do trust that the artist had something important to say that simply wasn't for my ears at the moment. If you are finding yourself disliking the vast majority of music you listen to, you might need a better attitude, a more open mind.

Whilst still working on it, yes, of course, so I'll know what to change and how to go forwards. Afterwards, don't see much point—I already know what it sounds like??

The death of a musical tradition begins when its practitioners start to become more concerned with accessibility than authenticity. In the case of the classical music tradition you're all familiar with this death started in the early 20th century when performers and critics rejected figures like Varèse, Russolo, Ives and Skalkottas in favour of figures like Rachmaninov, Puccini and Gershwin. This led to most of the audience leaving for more fertile musical pastures leaving only a small core of devotees with the unusual characteristic of being attached more to old music than new music (that would be most of you guys). Hence the demand for modern classical composers, since no one can listen to Bach and Beethoven forever (contrary to popular belief, if you were dropped on a desert island with the complete works of Bach, you would probably get scurvy and die, or be eaten by a shark or something. Your "desert island discs" should have been audiobooks like How To Build A Raft and Spear Fishing for Dummies. Moron.) but at the same time anything with more chords than Wagner is objectionable. So if you want to write modern classical music you have to embrace the fact that you're making music for a museum, pieces that will be DOA and never get a chance to live and breathe and grow. I like to do this by referencing other musics in various ways, as a form of recycling some of the vast amount of music that already exists rather than contributing even more. When I want to do things that involve actual creativity, I do them in different genres. Simples.

1 - symphony, not more than once every 2 months or so; other classical music concerts, weekly or fortnightly 2 - discounted tickets where available, single tickets where not. not a subscriber 3 - in clothing that does not display my genitalia or buttocks, because that would be illegal in the country where I live 4 - I take the bus. don't have a car 5 - no, it's way overpriced 6 - I occasionally feel a compulsion to be less white and middle-class if that counts. Also to slap people who are texting during the concert 7 - Most of the other people look incredibly boring and old. Has to be said. 8 - no

Listen to and study the works of Mozart, Chopin, Bellini, Wagner, Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich and other notable melodists, and try to figure out some of the strategies they use to avoid a cadence every four or eight bars. A few famous melodies you can start with (follow with the score, if possible) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45drOlTTTA8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJ8RVjm49hE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFnbnJrpT6o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nhcTllJgIY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bheXaiDbr0I (both the main melody and the one starting at 1:37 repay study)

You may not agree. But in my experience it's extremely rare to see, e.g., a measure of common time starting with a dotted half rest in a published score, & when such things appear in a manuscript it's usually due to the inexperience of the composer. (with odd exceptions like Stravinsky, whose scores are full of idiosyncrasies anyway) Pretty much every editor will rewrite that rest as a half and a quarter so as to avoid covering the middle of the bar. Probably unnecessary, but it's a convention. (I have a manual of style somewhere around, I think it agrees with me... if I can find it i'll scan the relevant page) I agree with you about not breaking the beats up either though.

Rests should indicate the beat. In 5/4, the initial four-quarter rest will be notated differently depending on whether that 5/4 subdivides into 2+3 or 3+2; if the former, two half rests; if the latter, a dotted half and a quarter. Similarly one should not use a half rest in 3/4, but write out two quarter rests, unless the 3/4 bars are to be felt "in one" and 3/4 is only an easier way to indicate a hypothetical 1/1.333333.... time signature. (Generally this will be clear from the tempo/metronome mark, which will use a dotted half instead of a quarter, as well as whether the 8th notes are beamed in one group of six rather than three groups of two.) Most modern typesetting practices are based on those of influential 19th century publishers like Breitkopf & Härtel, Simrock and Diabelli; should easily be able to find some out-of-copyright publications from those houses online and examine them to figure out what standard practice for a particular thing would be.

I rework everything. I don't come up with a lot of good musical ideas, so when I get one I make the most of it. The working process of Franz Liszt might be a good analogue. (Of course I also save all the old versions so I can track my own progress)

Composers like Brian Ferneyhough, Heinz Holliger, Wolfgang Rihm, Harrison Birtwistle and Hans Werner Henze have been building on the serial tradition during the last 40 years (in quite different ways—sometimes incorporating different influences as well). Traditions don't crystallise, they evolve. You can't claim Beethoven abandoned sonata form when he got rid of the repeats and put the second theme in the mediant and added an extra long coda. Magnus Lindberg composed serial music between about 1975 and 1989, as did Esa-Pekka Salonen. They both became quite renowned during this time. Another well-known (underrated IMO) serial composer who died fairly recently is George Perle. And in Germany & Austria there are plenty of relatively minor composers still carrying on: Yörk Holler, Robert HP Platz, Johannes Schöllhorn, JM Staud etc.

I recommend Janáček—if you're going to the Czech Republic you may as well hear one of the greatest Czech composers, performed by people deeply attuned to his language and music. Kátya Kabanova is one of his greatest works, worth hearing if the singers are good.

I've been considering posting some basic melody writing exercises, 4 or 8 bar sort of things, various instrumentation. Didn't know if anyone would look at them though. This place is pretty dead lately.

It's not dead, just out of fashion—the people who like harsh, discontinuous music have moved on to fanboy over Helmut Lachenmann and his disciples, the soulless academics now write soulless neo-romantic music (Corigliano, Higdon etc), the orchestral world limits itself to composers who already have at least 100 recordings of their music on the market and the 'average listener' is listening to Hans Zimmer or whatever.

Not really, you'll get at least as many great composers in any other given century of music. Like, look at 1850-1950. A century of music and you have Brahms, Wagner, Verdi, Tchaikovsky, Bruckner, Mahler, Puccini, Strauss, Rachmaninov, Debussy, Bartók, Stravinsky & Prokofiev, along with early Shostakovich, and that's just classical music. Could just as easily say all earlier composers spent their lives preparing the way for them. For the ~1715-1830 group if you're including Bach and Handel you also need to include Rameau, Couperin le Grand, Scarlatti and Vivaldi. Hell, in the interregnum (1830-1850) alone you have Chopin, Mendelssohn, Liszt, Schumann, Berlioz and Bellini, all of whom are standard repertoire figures beloved of listeners. I think that brings us to the main problem really which is that there is too much music. We have to thin it out some so it's not just Bach and Haydn and Beethoven getting all the attention. To start with, Beethoven is far too overplayed, causing his music to lose its value and uniqueness due to its omnipresence. To preserve what's left of its value we need to destroy the music, in order to preserve it in collective memory—the "Age of Beethoven", 1770-2014. Beethoven's achievement would then become far more valuable to future generations if all that was left of it was the documentation in text of its effects on people—we have already forgotten how to listen to it. The Ninth Symphony no longer inspires terror and awe, the Fourteenth Quartet has lost its nature of intense inwardness and become simply comfortable background music. Send them to the bonfire so that the memory of them will inspire us further. The same could profitably be done with Bach and Mozart, and the works of Haydn, Handel and Schubert are far too numerous in number and could easily be reduced by one-half or more without much loss.

Roland makes a good, compact battery powered WAV/MP3 recorder which costs about $200. You can connect a mic to it via a 3.5mm jack. There are possibly cheaper options, go to a music shop or similar and ask for advice

A rusty barn door also works pretty well