How can I move on from Bach?

I have a slight problem, in that at the moment my musical appreciation seems centred unreasonably firmly around J.S. Bach. I listen to Bach for what has to be at least an hour a day, almost all my compositions sound noticeably Bachian (to the extent that I've been admonished and threatened with detention by my composition tutor unless I eliminate compound melodies and unreasonable counterpoint!).

The problem is, the more I listen the more introverted and obsessed I become. The complexity and seriousness of the interweaving counterpoint is what seems to appeal; later music seems quite frankly dull by comparison, and the vast majority of pieces written after about 1830 sound either structureless or ungratifying. . . almost lightweight by comparison.

I exaggerated in that last paragraph, and this obviously not a worthy assessment of the post-1750 Western Classical tradition. My question is not simply to which composers I should be listening. A long list of composers followed by exclamation marks will be of no use, unless they're people who you think might lure me away from stolid counterpoint and seriousness.

My question is; how does one escape an infatuation with one composer? Doubtless this has happened to many of you before - I'm intrigued how you may have overcome previous obsessions. Does one just have to ban oneself from listening to the composer in question (as I have been advised by my composition tutor. . . grrr!). . . . surely that wouldn't work?!

My question is; how does one escape an infatuation with one composer?

I go through phases... frequently returning to some, quickly abandoning others. Unless you've been listening to Bach, and ONLY to Bach for years then it'll eventually work itself out.

As your ears develop you'll want to hear new things. Hopefully, you'll move on and start to hear other things in other music.

Try other composers from the baroque era, so they'll be similar in style to Bach - lots of counterpoint, etc - but not exactly like Bach, then from there you could try moving onto Mozart, and the sons of Bach, and Haydn, then Beethoven, and once you're on Beethoven... the world is your lobster.

Complex counterpoint is rather untypical for baroque though. You'll see a lot more of it in the 19th century (or in the music before baroque) than in baroque. I'm not sure if a "choronological discovery of music" is always the most "natural" one. You could say Bach is a lot closer to Webern than his own sons, or Vivaldi (and yes, I know Bach admired Vivaldi and learned a lot from him. But you can also learn a lot from someone who does something quite different from yourself).

If it is the complex counterpoint that interests you in Bach then look for that, be that in older music, Palestrina, Ockeghem, etc., or Webern, Brahms, or even the late Mozart. Or even Ferneyhough!

But of course, you might also get to like music that is complex/interesting in other aspects than counterpoint, so my general advice is not to "force" yourself to like music besides Bach, but just to give it a try now and then, relaxed, and trusting that with time you probably will discover something you really like. And if not, ah well, Bach is also great! Nothing wrong with listening to him. After all Masaaki Suzuki does nothing but play Bach and he doesn't seem bored yet.

I would advise you not to force yourself in any direction. Let your heart decide what to love.

The idea of looking for those aspects I appreciate in other composers' works is an excellent idea. Exploring other forms of complex counterpoint is something I'm already doing - from Palestrina to Vivaldi to Gesualdo. I feel I ought to move beyond 1750 now.

Complex counterpoint is rather untypical for baroque though. You'll see a lot more of it in the 19th century (or in the music before baroque) than in baroque.

It took me a surprisingly long time to realise this. Telemann's music is actually mainly homophonic (or more accurately, is largely in counterpoint that has similar note durations). I think the reason Bach stands out from most of his contemporaries is his gift for, and remarkably relentless use of, complex counterpoint. I'm not sure I can force myself to move on. I'll try listening to lots of early Mozart and Haydn this week, and see what happens. At the moment it still sounds rather lightweight - which seems a ludicrous thing to say.

I confess to adoring late Mozart. I'll try working backwards on that front. . . . . ;)

Hell, you could even, I dunno, NOT listen to classical music exclusively

Elton John is quite good ya know

That's like the kind of people going "I am antisocial. What do I do about it?"

Well, you know what you're supposed to do, why do you ask other people? Other people had nothing more than you did in order to "get over Bach" or any other composer. No one can do that for you, or do anything else for you in fact (apart from photocopying a few pages, I guess >_> ).

I don't understand what you mean. How to broaden one's musical horizons is only obvious to a certain extent. The fact that I know next to nothing about any music written after about 1940 is sometimes embarrassing, but I don't think that's a problem I'm likely to overcome.

Well, I think what Jujimufu means is that the only way is to listen to lots of different stuff. Nobody but yourself can say what you will like or can really make you like it.

As much as I'd personally recommend having a broad musical horizon, the fact that you're not familiar with music after 1940 only really starts to become a real problem when you realize you want to be more familiar with it, in which case the solution is simple: just listen to more of it. If you really want to overcome that "problem", I don't think it will be very hard (it just may take some time, maybe even very long). Not even to mention that you don't have to "know anything about" a certain musical period in order to enjoy it. Most people know almost nothing about the music they listen to every day.

There are a couple of composers/"styles" I haven't really found an access to yet, but which I somehow "suspect" I might like, such as Reger. In such a case I just listen to a piece of such a composer, and either it "grabs" me, or it doesn't. In the first case, great, I have found a new composer to discover more! In the second case I might simply wait a bit, maybe months, maybe years, then give it another try, until I either find a personal approach to this composer, or decide that I probably won't ever "get into" this music (which, of course, may later prove wrong anyways).

Books. There are loads of books about music after the 50's (Paul Griffiths' "Modern Music: The Avant-Garde after 1945" is a great introduction to the later 20th century music), the experimental music until the 70's (Michael Nyman's book "Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond", one of the best books on experimental music, focusing mainly on the american scene, but also on the european scene, with artists such as Cardew), contemporary music (David Toop's books, among others) and you can find loads of books on individual composers, and of course the endless articles on wikipedia. I realise it's a bit hard to have access to CDs and audio samples/scores of more contemporary composers, but you can definitely find loads of samples in websites such as bmic.co.uk and criticalnotice.co.uk (and the respective music information centres of other countries). You can always check iTunes and Amazon.com audio samples, before buying a CD, and you can find loads of CDs for a cheap price on ebay. For scores, you can preview scores at most of the music information centres and sheetmusicplus.com . Of course, becoming a member at a library with loads of music scores and CDs can also be very helpful.

You have to explore these things on your own, and you may shape your journey on exploring composers by asking people to suggest pieces to you, but their suggestions will mostly be based on what you already like and what they might think you'll like, so it's not as if someone could make a certain list of things to listen to for people who are "stuck on Bach" or something.

I haven't listened to much Reger, but what I've listened to so far is fun.

My recommendation is to just listen to modern music. Lots of it. In fact, lock yourself out of anything before 1900s for a while and just listen to stuff until you find SOMETHING you like.

From personal experience, I had a "Bach" phase for around, oh, five years, to the point of memorizing practically his entire organ repertoire, until someone told me it could be a good idea to invest as much time in modern music as I did in Bach, so I did.

Sometimes, you have to force yourself to listen to things, hate them or not. You have to sit there and actually forget about what you liked before and see what is it about what you're listening that you like now.

(Though it does help that before Bach I listened to a lot of pop/rock/game music..and oddities here and there, so "tuning out" wasn't such a problem when I tried.) All of this is in essence still present in modern music, and probably it won't be going away any time soon. You just have to get comfortable with all the new sounds/textures and stuff, and then you'll probably start making connections automatically.

Counterpoint is one of the main integral bridges between modern composition techniques and the entire tonal-harmony period, and it's not by accident. When it comes down to it, you can say anything works in some way or another like counterpoint.

The interaction between sounds, and sounds against other sounds, is precisely what counterpoint is about. Paired, of course, with horizontal thinking rather than vertical (melodic vs chords.)

I'd say it's less about giving other music a chance, and more about giving yourself a chance to actually find more things that you may enjoy, and that endeavor is really worth the risk in my opinion.

I would only hold on to the last phrase you said, SCC, I don't really find any use for the rest :P

I would only hold on to the last phrase you said, SCC, I don't really find any use for the rest :P

You're just suffering from a tl;dr syndrome. :>

Try and be normal.

Bach was a great composer, no doubt, and it isn't wrong to exclusively listen to him. But seriously, the majority of his pieces are short and focus on the rythmic aspect of music. In my opinion, this style doesn't... carry me in my emotions. Mozart and Haydn lack emotional harmonies as well. So, I think you should try listening to some Dvorak, Tchaikovsky, and Brahms. This will give you a good idea of the importance of chords. Then, work your way back to Beethoven. I feel that his music is the perfect balance between harmonious and rythmic complexity.

...huh? Have you been listening to the same Bach as I?

Maybe he's confusing Bach with Bart

That's just my opinon... as i said earlier. And yes, I believe that with GOOD reason. I, personally, am not emotionally affected by ANY of his violin concertos, fugues, inventions, violin partitas, and other concertos (including Brandenburg). And, yes, contrary to public notion, I HAVE listened to all of these. I like it. It's just not powerful, in my opinion.

Haha :D

no, i am not affected by the chaconne. It is... too technical for me. The long section in the middle with the 32nd sextuplets or whatever... It is useless in my mind. The whole piece lacks weight.

Exactly. What is it besides chords... what meaning does it give? It is just a variation of the melody. Again, It is MY opinion. MY opinion isn't easily changed. Weight = depth of thinking = versatility of emotion = emotional coherence.

*sigh*

What's the rest of classical music if not chords, notes assigned one on top of another or one next to another? And what meaning does baroque/classical/romantic music have beyond that? And what makes you believe that ALL music is to be judged under the scope of emotional and expression? I would never try that with a piece by Feldman, or a piece by Cage, or even a piece by Ives? And what if I told you that in Webern's pieces there is a lot of emotion? You'd tell me I am crazy, so this makes it not even emotion, but rather what *your* perception of emotion is, and how and *if* you can perceive this "emotionality" in a piece of music. So you're judging all music under some criteria which are highly flawed in terms of objectivity, or even subjectivity :P

Sound's like a fun conversation is coming up >_>

Sound's like a fun conversation is coming up >_>

I like your optimism!

...this makes it not even emotion, but rather what *your* perception of emotion is, and how and *if* you can perceive this "emotionality" in a piece of music.

Whose perception, exactly, do you propose he base his opinion on, if not his own?