Progression or expression

I was reading Edgar's minuetto con trio threat in the piano solo section and noticed there was an argument about the style not being orignal and whether or not you can take a piece like that serious. I've been thinking about this and what struk me is the following:

What accounts for music as well as to almost every other element of the human world is that we want progression. But why is progression something to be aiming for? Should progression be a goal in it

progression for the cash, expression for the soul, if they collide, big troubles, or very happy.

in a perfect world expression would always be beautiful as a form of communication, but only the most talented can express themselves with no strings attached and still remain beautiful, i think, otherwise they wouldn't be so successful if people didnt think they are beautiful.

what do you think?

Not being able to take a piece seriously because you know who composed when. Nice.

I'm not too fond of either of those words. "Progression" has the connotation of "improvement", creating "better" things than before. That may have been an ideal of modernism, but I think most people are over that by now. I do however find difference a value I'm personally looking out for in music. Music that simply imitates what has been there before simply doesn't interest me that much, and in my own compositions one major incentive for me is to discover something new for myself.

Expression is rather irrelevant for me there, and I don't like the romantic image of the composer "pouring his soul into the music" very much. Music, to me, is just much too complex, difficult and obscure to be such a direct "emotional medium". (Which doesn't mean that composing has nothing to do with emotion of course. It certainly has a great lot to do with it, just not always in the most direct, obvious way.)

I'm much more interested in a music which not just I form, but which also forms me in return. Ideally, composing is quite a symbiotic thing for me, where I come up with musical thoughts, let them develop, see how they affect me in return, and so on. The happiest moments for me are when I can suddenly discover something in a composition by me I wasn't aware of beforehand consciously, when my musical thoughts lead to processes which I can't completely forsee and which turn into something which is both my own, but still a "foreign individual".

This definitely has nothing to do with "progression", but it still implies that I want to write music that is different from what I've heard before.

Besides these very personal things, I think there's also cultural context that needs to be considered. The reason why it's not the same thing when somebody today writes a "Mozart symphony" than when Mozart did is not just that we need to "progress". It is that we live in a different cultural context, with a different historical background and different knowledge, so that we can't possibly write a "Mozart symphony" in a similar mind as Mozart did. If we -do- write the same sounds it will be something different, at least for us, as composers ("You can never step into the same river twice"). Since we -are- aware of what Mozart did and know what all happened since then it will be an imitation and not simply "music that happens to sound similarly". We just can't pretend to be a blank slate there. I'm not saying there's something fundamentally wrong with that, just that anybody who does it should be aware of this and consider why he would prefer to copy a certain historical phenomenon over creating something different, that stands in some relation (even if its one of refusal) to the cultural environment of today.

I think it's just this that needs to be considered: Not whether it is legitimate to write in the style of Mozart, but whether it's a position that you actively choose to take in today's world for some reason, or whether it's simply a case of denying history.

There are two kinds of composers.

A pusher and a puller.

One progresses for the sake of progressing and searching through experiential means. The other has something in mind and must progress from an older form to meet its new idea.

I just made that up because it sounds cool, and I can relate to it.

You've got to be a little of both.

I think something to think about is "authentic expression." Artists who have a desire to tie together the links between music, philosophical and sociological thoughts realize that creating something that is merely derivative of something else isn't an authentic form of expression. Just read Wagner's writings on the subject of aesthetics, this was a big movement in the Romantic era. As far as the question asked, should progression be the sole end goal of music? No, but I think to deny progression is to spit in the face of the natural order of things. Evolution is going to happen whether you like it or not. Stockhausen says something really interesting about this in a lecture he did at Oxford, see link....

YouTube - Stockhausen on Human evolution - 1972

Ok, so I quess it just depents on the goal we're after.

According to The J we should aim for progression if we want the money and expression if we want to pour our souls. And if we're luckey the'll add up in one composer.

Gardner has a different set of goals, namely difference and symobioses.

Schumann said there a different types of composers of which some of them aim for expression and other for progression.

And Gavin claimed we shouldn't deny progression, althuogh it's not a goal on itself.

Thus in fact progression as well as expression are a mean to a goal and not a goal by itself and are both ways to go, no to go or go agianst. But we must consider that we cannot deny the fact that time is passing and our culture is changing.

There are an awful lot of big words being tossed around in this thread.

I can only speak for myself, and will do so in simple words, as I think those are the ones that carry the least ambiguity (sorry, that's a big word).

As a student composer, I tried to imitate the composers that I admired, to understand what it was that made their music sound the way it did.

Once I did understand, I saw no more interest in continuing to imitate them.

Once I did understand, I was more interested in seeing how I, myself, could take what it was I had learned, and make something... different. Something that was no longer an imitation.

And then, my curiosity got the better of me, and there was another composer I admired, and I was tempted to imitate him, to learn what it was that made his music "his" (or hers... sorry for the sexist generalization).

And at some point in this long process, I came to a place where I had no interest at all in imitating anyone else. I wanted to do something that would be uniquely identified as "me". I don't think I will ever really consciously know whether I've achieved that goal. Being human, well, there will always be influences of those who came before, and especially of those I've admired.

But every piece that I write, I am trying to do "something different" from what I have done before.

If I write a sonata form, I am always trying to find ways to twist it, to make it unique, to give it MY perspective.

I am not an avantgarde experimenter type composer, but I find nothing appealing in imitating the style of a past composer.

I still believe that tonality has a lot to offer me, as a composer, but not common practice tonality. How can I not be intrigued by all the discoveries that have been made over the last 120 years in harmony?

If I look at the great composers of the past, I cannot help but see that the ones we admire the most are the ones who never stopped pushing their own limits in some way or form. The ones who never complacently imitated what had come before. Are there any late 19th century composers who wrote strictly "baroque" style music, or strictly "classical era" style music? If they couldn't ignore 100 years or more of harmonic discovery, then why, another 100 years later, would we complacently ignore yet another 100 years of exploration?

I'm fine with people writing what they want if what they want to do is historicist music. I don't understand the appeal in it, and I don't think it's fair to expect me to admire it.

My personal belief is that it is the composer's duty to push himself further, always. That is my belief. Someone asked, in another thread, "what makes a composer a 'true' composer?" Well, complacent imitation is definitely not it, in my opinion. I will never consider anyone who is an avowed historicist to be a "true composer". To me, they will always be hobbyists, dilettantes, week-enders.

Progression?

Expression?

How can a composer not always do both?

I express with my music.

And I try to always progress in every new work upon which I embark.

Do I succeed every time? Probably not.

But the effort is there.

the above statements were my opinion.

take them or leave them.

Yah, great post QC.

For me, I'm always trying to progress the development of my own voice for expression ... the each is a necessary compliment to the other.

As a student composer, I tried to imitate the composers that I admired, to understand what it was that made their music sound the way it did.

Once I did understand, I saw no more interest in continuing to imitate them.

Once I did understand, I was more interested in seeing how I, myself, could take what it was I had learned, and make something... different. Something that was no longer an imitation.

Yes. The difference between copying and composing. There is no fine line to draw but for the biggest expert.

My personal belief is that it is the composer's duty to push himself further, always.

i am not sure that you can progress on every composition, sometimes thinking about progress can delay it, because if you cant see where you are how do you know that you've advanced?

the process of discovering it, can make a composition on its own, a new sound, that wasnt even heard by the composer itself-and that alone can progress him to next level of composition, because he struggled to communicate with his listeners and himself, and a long time and effort can pass until he has passed that level and can hear that melody strongly and focused and transfer it in its purity to the material plane.(of existance!!!muhaha, but i was serious before, really.)