Technical Difficulty

In your opinion, must beautiful music be technically challenging? Is simplicity too boring to you?

Not necessarily. But experience has proven to me that most simple music is also boring to listen to, not to mention play.

On the whole, I agree with flint-wwrr. If a piece is so simple to be 100% predictable it will be boring. But I wouldn't consider beauty and simplicity opposites in music, and a technically difficult piece can be boring to listen to. There isn't any easy way to attain beauty in composing.

Sometimes even simplicity for simplicity's sake can be beautiful. In general, though, I like to go with the Schachat Law:

Music is made of notes.

The more notes, the more musical.

Ergo, shred is the single greatest genre of music. Long live Shane Gibson.

Just to share my two cents worth of thought.

I believe there is a middle way.

Put in all the notes or difficult stuff which you think you need but be able to justify for every note that you put into the score. Every note is there for a reason.

Music can be liked Bikini - Cover the essentials but reveal a lot. When you have too little, it becomes vulgar. When you have too much, it because conservative. But by means, you can use Sheer Fabric at appropriate areas which leaves much to imagination.

Sorry, if you find what I have said is nonsensical.

No.

Music ain't about technical virtuosity, it's about ingenuity. If you can be ingenious with 5 notes of a piano, then by all means.

VERY interesting. The Nocturne in A minor (I composed under chamberworks) for piano and violin is technically challenging. The violin piece is beautiful but terribly difficult. Liszt's Liebestraume is beatiful and challenging as is Paganini's works for violin. La Campanella is beautiful, and the Piano Version by Liszt s hell! Well, difficult. Beautiful music should be difficult as well! :-D

Oh, simple music can be so immensely beautiful. The most beautiful things in life are usually very simple.

Like chocolate.

My opinion is that simplicity is good.

...

:P

Simple can be beautiful, but if it's boring to play for a percentage of the ensemble, musicians are not above sabotage.

Musicians are definitely not above sabotage.

*snickers at what he did, playing in a stupid service on Sunday*

Not at all. And most virtuosic show-off pieces bore me to death.

Flint: Yes, but is a technically harder piece per se more interesting to play for the musicians? (Not even to mention that even a technically easy piece isn't necessarily easy to perform.)

Not at all. And most virtuosic show-off pieces bore me to death.

I agree. I hate it when ostentations of technical prowess crowd out musicality.

Flint: Yes, but is a technically harder piece per se more interesting to play for the musicians? (Not even to mention that even a technically easy piece isn't necessarily easy to perform.)

Can't speak for all musicians, but I like it somewhere in between. Simplistic music is boring to play, but I want some room to breathe, to focus on style, to enjoy playing the music. That's pretty well impossible if it's all I can do to hit the right notes.

I agree. I hate it when ostentations of technical prowess crowd out musicality.

But I think that it takes an insane musician, maybe even solely technical prowess, to take an otherwise garish display of "Look what I can do!" to be musical?

But then again, it's just a values thing about which music is "better."

But I think that it takes an insane musician, maybe even solely technical prowess, to take an otherwise garish display of "Look what I can do!" to be musical?

Sure does. And that's definitely not me. Maybe career musicians feel differently.

But then again, it's just a values thing about which music is "better."

I guess that's true. Regardless of what the musician does with it, some pieces are written to show off a talented instrumentalist, and some are written to be damn good music. I prefer the latter.

I know some pieces are intended to be both, but it's pretty rare for a showy piece to be enjoyable to me after the first impressive performance.

Not necessarily. But experience has proven to me that most simple music is also boring to listen to, not to mention play.

Completely disagree!! Simple music can be hauntingly beautiful and effective.

Simple can be beautiful, but if it's boring to play for a percentage of the ensemble, musicians are not above sabotage.

Perhaps mediocre musicians are not above sabotage, but professional musicians find a way to make any performance effective regardless of their personal feelings on the piece. This is one aspect that makes them professionals.

Folks, please don't fall into the trap that for something to be beautiful it has to be complex. This has been proven false in so many cases, in an out of the musical realm.

Well I used to play piano competitively and don't anymore, and I can say now that I prefer simpler music as an instrumentalist. Harder music just means more practicing. Anyone can play anything with enough practice. I always liked the artistic part a lot more than the technical part, which is one of the reasons I switched to focusing more on composition. With simpler music you can concentrate more on the musicality and expressing yourself, rather than getting the notes right.

As a composer, I agree with somebody, I forget who, if the difficulty is justifiable then simple and difficult music can be equally beautiful, but if its difficult for the sake of difficult, then I don't see the point.

I'm a 'cellist and one of my favourite pieces to play is Dido's Lament. Same phrase repeated for the entire piece. Simple music isn't boring for the performer when they actually embrace the beauty they are creating. And this thread just reminds me of the whole "slow pieces aren't as difficult as fast ones" - it's a different kind of difficulty. Not just musically, but technically, too.

You can't put music in boxes and say all simple music is less beautiful than complex music!