Is melody anything worth in modern art music?

Wow, I only read about the first page and then decided I had to post, sorry if I repeat something.

Do you want to know why classical music is not as popular anymore? It's because atonal music plays no role in the average persons life. No one wants to hear it except the "high class, well educated" composer. Now, I don't think that atonal music is bad, I enjoy Corigliano, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, etc. However, the problem with most atonal music, MOST atonal music (trying to stress most here if you haven't gathered :-/) is a lack of connection with the audience. People have an innate tendency towards melody and harmony. I know that atonal music has harmony, but I mean tonal harmony. A diad of two minor seconds played harmonically creates beats in the air which are instinctively "bad sounds" and displeasing to the ear. If we have to train ourselves to enjoy this or appreciate it we're going past the emotional and communicative level of music and going into a intellectual music level, which I believe is not what music should be about.

Why do you think pop took off? It speaks to the average person. And, in my opinion, the greatest goal of classical music should be to be able move the average person deeply through any instruments you can in an INVENTIVE way. I believe that's what separates classical music from Pop music. It needs to be inventive and original. Atonal music is inventive and original, but not moving to the average person.

lolz... we are NOT average people. good point.

Yes, but explain to me how melody can be more than one line? Doesn't it then become harmony?

Melody cannot be more than one line. But that's not to say it can't be more than one instrument, more than one collection of sounds at any given time, more than one note.

Example: Messiaen's birdsong transcriptions include complex "harmonies" for each note. However, the function of these harmonies is not actually to give a harmonic language to the melody - it is to create overtone interference that lends a particular timbre to each note of the melody. When this is done orchestrally, it makes even more timbral sense.

Another example: Schoenberg's various Klangfarben stuff - it's a melody, split up amongst the ensemble.

Another example: Afatsim by Chaya Czernowin creates "compound instruments," each comprised of two to three individual instruments. These instruments work together to create a timbre, but they do not always play in unison. Sometimes it's a timbral shift over time (from one instrument to another), or even alternating notes between them. But it's still a melody.

I think you are using "one line" erroneously to describe "one melodic gesture." Certainly when you have two melodic gestures, then you're getting into counterpoint and harmony. But just because multiple instruments play different things at the same time, it doesn't preclude its addition into the realm of the melodic.

lolz... we are NOT average people. good point.

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not. But, in case you are; no we're not average. We are well educated in this field and thus we ignore and isolate ourselves from the ideas of the people who are not music scholars, and they are the ones who will listen to our music for the most part!

If you weren't being sarcastic, then disregard that :toothygrin:.

Why do you think pop took off? It speaks to the average person.

Now, I don't think that atonal music is bad, I enjoy Corigliano, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, etc.

However, the problem with most atonal music, MOST atonal music (trying to stress most here if you haven't gathered :-/) is a lack of connection with the audience. People have an innate tendency towards melody and harmony. I know that atonal music has harmony, but I mean tonal harmony. A diad [sic] of two minor seconds played harmonically creates beats in the air which are instinctively "bad sounds" and displeasing to the ear.

If we have to train ourselves to enjoy this or appreciate it we're going past the emotional and communicative level of music and going into a intellectual music level, which I believe is not what music should be about.

And, in my opinion, the greatest goal of classical music should be to be able move the average person deeply through any instruments you can in an INVENTIVE way. I believe that's what separates classical music from Pop music. It needs to be inventive and original. Atonal music is inventive and original, but not moving to the average person.

D+

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not. But, in case you are; no we're not average. We are well educated in this field and thus we ignore and isolate ourselves from the ideas of the people who are not music scholars, and they are the ones who will listen to our music for the most part!

If you weren't being sarcastic, then disregard that :toothygrin:.

Duly disregarded! haha. You will find that I am only sarcastic when I do this [sarcasm] Your point is SOO off topic [/sarcasm]

:)

Wow, I only read about the first page and then decided I had to post, sorry if I repeat something.

Well, you didn't repeat anything that was particularly stated like that in this thread, however the total content of your post has been posted on this forum dozens of times, with tiny variations. That's also why I don't really feel like giving yet another detailed response to what you said, after already having done it so many times. So just a little advice: If you are throwing around such huge notions about what "sounds bad" and what people have an "innate tendency to", please don't just rely on some standard prejudices that you might have heard floating around somewhere and repeat them literally (even worse if you combine it with some fragments of pseudo-science such as mentioning beatings in passing). If you want to hack away at what many people have studied and thought about for decades, at least put some effort in it and try to support your claims. If you don't want to do that (which is understandable), I'd rather keep back the huge generalized (and, I'm sorry to say, rather silly) statements.

Because pop music doesn't require any thought for an average musically uneducated person. Lazy uneducated people are lazy. (shock, horror)

The problem with this statement is that none of these are 'atonal composers'. 'Pantonal', maybe.

blah, blah, blah, subjective and unsupported argument.

opinion, quite subjective.

conclusion lacks supportive facts.

D+

You're the type of person I'm talking about. The evidence I have is that every non-composer I have talked to that loves classical music dislikes atonal music. Even ones who are heads of conservatories.

And if we are writing so average people can't understand then who are we writing for? Average people can understand Mozart without effort, not at all Webern and Berg.

Classical music is considered elitist because of things like this, thinking that average people are just too lazy to get it. If they can't understand it it's the fault of the composer, not the listener.

I'm not saying average people will go out and listen to it, most will find it boring. What I'm saying is that an average person can put on Beethoven and feel the emotions, they can't do that with atonal music. It doesn't speak to them.

Classical music should not be a "You have to be this intelligent to listen" medium. Music fails if it becomes that.

By the way, Schoenberg, one of the first atonal composers, is not atonal? I'm glad I found that out :P

By the way, Schoenberg, one of the first atonal composers, is not atonal? I'm glad I found that out :P

OY... this again... basically it depends on one's definition of atonal, right? Some people say it's what Schoeberg came up with (no CENTER, per se... which I disagree with because it always comes BACK to the same pitches, so it DOES have a tonal center, IMHO)... but also some people think it's "Without tone"... so like "Cars driving by"(a musical piece I don't think exists...) would be more atonal than anything that you could write in standard notation.

Well, you didn't repeat anything that was particularly stated like that in this thread, however the total content of your post has been posted on this forum dozens of times, with tiny variations. That's also why I don't really feel like giving yet another detailed response to what you said, after already having done it so many times. So just a little advice: If you are throwing around such huge notions about what "sounds bad" and what people have an "innate tendency to", please don't just rely on some standard prejudices that you might have heard floating around somewhere and repeat them literally (even worse if you combine it with some fragments of pseudo-science such as mentioning beatings in passing). If you want to hack away at what many people have studied and thought about for decades, at least put some effort in it and try to support your claims. If you don't want to do that (which is understandable), I'd rather keep back the huge generalized (and, I'm sorry to say, rather silly) statements.

If you don't want to listen, fine. Your just calling the majority of people's opinions ignorant and silly. There can be no support to any of these statements because music is an art, and art is based on opinion. I just KNOW what most people think of classical music.

Most people hate classical music not because of the music, but because of the people. When I told my parents I wanted to go to a conservatory and study classical music they said, "You're not going to be happy with those stuck up pricks." That sentiment resonates through the majority of the international public. By the way, my parents are well educated and have published papers in scientific journals and went to Ivy League schools, and they even think classical music is stuck up.

By the way, Schoenberg, one of the first atonal composers, is not atonal? I'm glad I found that out :P

Oh dear... as much as I want to help you on this one, I'm gonna have to pass.

Good luck. You're going to need it.

-AA

Oh dear... as much as I want to help you on this one, I'm gonna have to pass.

Good luck. You're going to need it.

-AA

If Schoenberg is not considered atonal then I give up on all of this :-/.

I think we here all know what it typically means for something to be "atonal." Cut the "ur definition iz to brawd" carp. Most Schoenberg is atonal. He pioneered "atonal" music, as we call it. To say his isn't atonal is simply to think too hard about it. And I don't mean anything about how Schoenberg viewed "atonal" music as 'having no tones whatsoever. "there is no such antithesis."'

If Schoenberg is not considered atonal then I give up on all of this :-/.

He wasn't the first atonal composer. And they will rip on you for saying he was... that's all I'm saying.

Be sure you're at least up to date on 20th Century music so you know these things... that's all.

Again, good luck to ya! I'm pulling for you from the sidelines.

-AA

LOL

I'm not going to get into a debate about Schoenberg and atonality. Any comments about him is beside the point and off-topic from this thread. Anyone who is planning to say something, don't expect any response from me.

LOL

I think it's funny that you can't come up with a better response to my answers to your questions than that. To that I have this to say:

LOL

;)

Ugh. The largest problem here is that people don't understand the terms they are using, nor do they know who's who in today's music scene. Once you guys figure that out... get back to me.

Should one solely cater to their potential audience? Write what you like imo.

My oh my what a trail of words we have shed here at YC.

here is my 2 cents -

When Berlioz heard Chinese music during one of the Expositions in the 19th century featuring the arts from the East, he said he could pick out from one performance only 4 tones - the rest sounded like turkey's scratching (or something like that - in any case it sounded like "noise" to him). He judged it wasn't "music".

This anecdote brings me to this -

Read carefully Morivou's definitions posted - they all involve TASTE. Taste is based on perception and preferences. "Melody" is a convention formed by perceptual expections conditioned by our social milieu and environment. For a composer, it is very important to know the various conventions used to create a "melody" but there isn't any one absolute convention.

I hope this thread is closed soon as I think there is not much else to say.

Ugh. The largest problem here is that people don't understand the terms they are using, nor do they know who's who in today's music scene. Once you guys figure that out... get back to me.

qft

qft

'Tis True.

There's a big philosophical problem with even talking about this.

Charlie put his premise of what a definition is with Mirriam-Webster or whatever he quoted. Others... well...

:whistling:

Oh lol @ the boring duality debate. Gardener, SSC, Charlie, Flint, Robin, and others are all people I pretty much agree with most of the time on here. I appreciate the umm...heart..or passion..or naivet

Read carefully Morivou's definitions posted - they all involve TASTE. Taste is based on perception and preferences. "Melody" is a convention formed by perceptual expections conditioned by our social milieu and environment. For a composer, it is very important to know the various conventions used to create a "melody" but there isn't any one absolute convention.

I am sorry. I know what you mean. I misspoke.

Morivou - What are you apologizing for?

These threads never cease to amaze me