What is the point of writing music?

What is the point of writing music? And furthermore, what is the point of music?

This has been something that I've been thinking a lot about recently, as I've been reconsidering the types of music that I write and the reasons why I write them. I often wonder how different my tastes in music would be if I knew nothing about theory or orchestration. As most people here know (I'm sure), the majority of the population (at least in America, I can't speak for other countries) enjoy rap music and rock music which is often fairly simple.

But is there any reason for music to be complex? If people enjoy simple music, then why right complex music that people may or may not enjoy? Often, it seems to me, that the only people who enjoy such music are people who are "musically educated" on some level, who are taught what to look for in the music.

I've been getting into a lot of more avant-garde type music these days; music that I'm sure many people don't even consider music. I wonder if I ACTUALLY enjoy it because of whatever emotions I get out of it or because I know of all the hidden complexities in the music. I also wonder if I'm just listening to it because it makes me feel all intellectual and pretentious.

So we composers usually write music for ourselves, no? Does anyone other than me think they might write completely different types of music if they didn't have so much outside influence (music training, the music we hear our lives etc). I mean, I might not have enjoyed dissonance at all if I hadn't been hearing 5 chords on the radio since I was born.

I'm not that great of a writer, so hopefully this all makes sense and isn't TOO rambling. So what do you think? Why do you write music?

I want to reply to this, but I don't know how. Mostly because I don't have an answer.

A few thoughts came into my head, but I haven't pieced them together coherently. One, is that people (somehow) still recognize the things that are "great" out there... people know Van Gogh and Dali and Da Vinci were great painters; that Beethoven and Bach and Mozart were great composers; that Einstein and Steven Hawking are great physicists... but I guarantee that most people don't know why.

People listen to pop/rock/rap, obsess over it, go fanatical over it, but when the next media-hyped artist comes along, they have a new source for obsession... People "like" the music and the artists, but they don't necessarily "respect" them.

Most people respect the "great" people who have lived... but I'm not really sure why.

The key to being popular and well liked is to try and appeal to everyone, even if you sacrifice your own voice in the process. There's nothing wrong with that, it earns a living. But it's not satisfying in itself.

I play piano because I _like_ it, and I improvise music because I _like_ to. It really is all about me. And most of the time, I don't put a lot of stake into other people's opinions.

There have been times when I've had a friend listen to an improv session that had 50+ different musical ideas, wanting input on which ideas they liked best. But all I get back is a "yeah, I liked that" or "no, I liked the other one better"... but nothing... useful.

However, I respect the opinions of most everyone here, sure, a "I like it" or not helps every once in awhile, but more importantly, it will help me focus on making something that _I_ like better, by pointing out my weaknesses and helping me fix them.

That was more of a ramble than yours. Maybe you got something from it?

What is the point of writing music?

Impossible to answer. Everyone you ask will have a different answer. Asking yourself why YOU write music would yield a better answer. There are lots of reasons: money, fame, sex, money, sex, money, sex, and so on....

You may even find yourself a composer because it's simply the only thing you know HOW to do. A dangerous life indeed.

I expect you'll get a lot of cliched answers such as, "To move people" but I think those answer-givers are satisfying some wierd disfunctional part of their ego.

Music is kind of like urinary incontinence. Whatever you may attempt to do about it, it will flow.

To spread the glory of God...

That's what I always say, partly because it's repeated over and over by my chaplain, and also because that's what people in my religious community expect me to say.

See my sig.

Heh. One grows out of constantly pondering this question - I certainly used to wonder it too, 2-3 years ago. My attitude now is similar to Mark's.

Why do you write music?

I've concluded that (for me) that's impossible to answer. I write music for music's sake, that's all I can say.

Communication!

Because it's fun! It's rewarding!

If you start asking questions like that, ask yourself. Why do eat? To live. Why do I wanna live? We all die anyway.. If everybody asks why and thinks like that, then the world would be a sad place.

Stop asking and start composing, if that's what you like.

I think for two simple reasons (and this applies to all forms of art)

1) For the creator to express themselves through the art.

2) For the viewer-listener to find their own emotions through (or because of) the art.

At the base level, I think that is what it is all about.

Stop asking and start composing

;):thumbsup:

1. I listen to music for the same reason I look at flowers.
   
2. I write music for the same reason I paint pictures.
   
3. I play music for the same reason I climb mountains.
   

To each their own. :thumbsup:

Because it's fun! It's rewarding!

If you start asking questions like that, ask yourself. Why do eat? To live. Why do I wanna live? We all die anyway.. If everybody asks why and thinks like that, then the world would be a sad place.

Stop asking and start composing, if that's what you like.

Heyyyy..... That's the best answer I've seen so far. Good one.

Because I have to... to retain my sanity!! If I had no way to express the music running around inside my head, I'd go crazy.

This sure has many answers, and many of them are correct. I personally write it to let me relax from daily stress and also let me express my joy, pain, sadness, confusion etc. It helps me a lot, it is also like an entertaining puzzle there you have some pieces but you need to put the correct pieces with the others pieces to make it complete :thumbsup:

This is exactly why atonal music will not survive. It is an acquired taste that very few people will ever try to cultivate. (Think about a food that you would not eat unless your survival depended upon it and then think about paying fifty bucks for someone to feed it to you for an hour when you don't need it.)

The best thing I learned from this thread is that music is like food. Or in other words, it's like sex you can keep in the fridge.

The best thing I learned from this thread is that music is like food. Or in other words, it's like sex you can keep in the fridge.

:thumbsup:

I need to remember this one :w00t:

If a composer could express themselves through words, they wouldn't do it through music.

why write music. my god, what a question.

I'll start by saying why I like it. I write music for a bunch of reasons. I have been trained in music from a young age (4) and for a long time now, I have had music just running around in my head. people get songs stuck in their head, well, I get my own songs that I make up as they are heard. It's almost like I do classical improv in my head, all the time. I need to get those ideas out there, so I do. I've just started to really understand how to, and now the music I'm writing is suddenly a lot better.

the question of music itself is a big one. you say why write complex stuff, because idiots (sorry, sorry.. PEOPLE) like pop, and rock, and that kind of crud. (I'm not a fan.) simplicity is great, and you will find that complex music hasn't necessarily defined by great composers. think about Beethoven's 5th. you can't get much simpler than that. a lot of the very famous classical composers out there have done great things with very simple ideas. alternatively, people like Bach were all about the complexity. whatever, it worked AT THE TIME.

music changes with time, as do people's tastes. the general public would rather stab themselves in the eye then to take in an opera. and yet, just 400 years ago, people would die just to get into one. same with fugues, with chants.. they all had their run. now, because of the lack of musical education to the public, you have these kids who are in their teens trying to scrape something together for a garage band, and since they don't care or have the attention span to deal with theory, they just throw together very simple things. these people eventually become famous, sadly, because of various popularity contests through their career. I'm willing to bet that 50 cent couldn't tell you what key his song was in if you payed him.

however, if you want to see modern day complex music that is relativly popular, go with modern jazz. people are coming up with weird chord changes and odd keys, and all sorts of candy to the musician's eye, and you will find many more people that know a lot of music theory in jazz then those in pop, because those that are educated in pop would want to kill themselves.

so, there you have it. the masses will go towards pop. the educated people will go towards jazz. and, if you look at the ratio of listeners in both, you will find the same ratio of educated musicians to general arts degrees. and that, sir, is why I'm starting to only write jazz now.. afterall, it's where the musicians go :)

1. it's fun

2.I...cant...stop.

3...What everybody else said

This is exactly why atonal music will not survive. It is an acquired taste that very few people will ever try to cultivate. (Think about a food that you would not eat unless your survival depended upon it and then think about paying fifty bucks for someone to feed it to you for an hour when you don't need it.)

;) :laugh: :laugh:

I think you're onto something there. Atonal music is called "atonal" for a reason. It produces sounds that the human ear and human brain do not naturally enjoy listening to.

As you say, to truly appreciate it requires cultivation. And cultivation is nothing more than training the ear and brain to appreciate things that they don’t naturally appreciate. That can happen in basically two ways; one way is purposefully decide to cultivate it on your own, the other way is to simply be placed in a situation where you are immersed in it to the point where it just kind of “grows” on you.

But even then, I would tend to agree with you that atonal music is like Spam (the meat product). Even if you are placed in a situation where you have no choice but to eat it continually, you are still going to appreciate other foods once they become available again.

I think the human ear and brain are naturally inclined to appreciate tonality over atonality just as the human tongue prefers the taste of other foods over Spam. The physics of the overtone series pretty much explains why this is true of music. I’m not sure if there is a similar physical explanation for the failure of fast-food Spam restaurants to emerge, but clearly they haven’t. However, with atonality, we do have a physical explanation of why it will never become a main-stay in the diet of music listeners in general.

True, true. When I said the bit about eating something strictly for the purpose of survival, I mean lots worse than Spam. Spam can be downed by most people in not dire situations. What I meant was to think of a food that the only reason you would eat it was to stay alive. (Wandering in the desert, you come across a pile of camel crap covered in cockroach urine, topped with a sprinkle of maggot infested fish guts and a side of e-coli.) Most people would rather die. That is what happens with atonal concerts, most people would rather not go.

The atonal genre was invented and promoted by the scholarly types; the university professors etc. who claim that if someone doesn't 'get it' then they are less intelligent than he/she who wrote it. Basically needing to feed their ego by seeming smarter than the rest. (Schoenberg, by the way, admitted at the end of his life that atonalism was a bad road to take. Pity he didn't spend any time really trying to correct his mistake.) What I find really funny is that the great composers who have been dead for so long and whose music STILL gets played, had little if any formal education.

So, logically, the way to become a great composer is to not have had any education besides private lessons. DROP OUT OF SCHOOL BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!! (just kidding) Hmmm. I hope none of my students read this post!

Cheers!

What I find really funny is that the great composers who have been dead for so long and whose music STILL gets played, had little if any formal education.

I'm sorry, but just because the public isn't educated enough to appreciate most music from non-dead composers, it does not necessarily follow that music from non-dead composers isn't any good. It just means the audience doesn't understand or appreciate it... just like the child fed nothing but sugar refusing caviar.

...and personally, I'd prefer a rich, warm, complex cup of coffee to a sippy cup full of sugar water.