The lack of "Common practice"

3 hours ago, SSC said:

Evolutionary psychology is an actual field of study. I'm pretty certain that there's quite a lot of research done on our instincts to protect infants and baby-like creatures that's built into our brain (and the brains of mammals, actually.) So yes, you COULD, if you were serious about actually trying to articulate anything properly. I bet even a quick google search can come up with good results on this kind of thing, and I'm not too picky if we can agree on the sources. The rest is just a consequence of this built into our culture and hence morality. I mean it's more complex than that, sure, but that's roughly how it would play out. Wish you would've gone with a more abstract example since this is pretty simple to sort out if you've got even a little bit of knowledge of experimental psychology.

Yeah, but those are just instincts. They don't mean anything! It's just an act of nature!

That's just how we feel about it. Or at least, how most do. But how do you prove the baby is objectively more valuable than the desserts, or a falling kitten, or a plant? Show me empirical, peer-reviewed evidence that a human baby really is worth more than a tuna sandwich. You can't, because it's all just in your head!

So let the babies die and grab the falling food! The only reason you might think the baby is more valuable is just because of brain chemicals! 

3 hours ago, SSC said:

I mean, any properly educated composer can write a fugue like Bach's

You should really sit and think about this sentence you wrote for a while, and maybe you'll come around to realizing how utterly stupid the points you're making in these threads are.

If there is no greater standard to be achieved, then how can a "properly-educated" composer even exist? How can you determine what a "proper" education is? If you believe that quality is just subjective, then any kind of or no education at all are equally valid.

3 hours ago, SSC said:

Projecting much?

Buddy, all of your posts here are projection. You feel this need to come into these threads and keeping asserting how "originality" and "experimentation" is so great and there is no objective higher standard because you're insecure about your own music.

Which, again, I could take you maybe a bit seriously if you actually were making mind-blowing, totally different, quality music instead of living room recordings of late 90s hipster "indie" rock.

It's like listening to a metal edgelord in an "...and justice for all" shirt go off about how "all that pop crap is over-produced garbage". You wouldn't seriously consider that person's opinions. You'd just be like "Yeah, ooookay man, at least I can hear the bass lol".

3 hours ago, SSC said:

You're really fond of the ad populum fallacy, to the point I suspect it's basically the main mechanism of all your arguments. I mean it's adorable, but come on. I said it before, you need to try harder. Try google, it can help you look things up, it's quite an amazing thing.

You're really fond of the "fallacy" fallacy. Notice how you completely failed to offer an explanation as to why people prefer the works I mention?

Here's an idea, since you're so into psychology, try reading this. It'll be like looking into your own soul.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10626367

It's called "The Dunning-Kruger Effect"

4 hours ago, AngelCityOutlaw said:

But how do you prove the baby is objectively more valuable...

A value judgement has to be made by someone. That someone is a human being. If you're asking me what's more "valuable" without an observer to render that judgment then you're more stupid than I imagined. Good job.

4 hours ago, AngelCityOutlaw said:

If you believe that quality is just subjective, then any kind of or no education at all are equally valid.

Yes this is true, but it's also true that you can have standards for yourself and set goals that are challenging. I think that, while anyone without any education can be a composer and write stuff that's pretty great, it's a good thing to have higher education standards if only because it broadens the spectrum of things you can do. It's a positive thing to know more things and specially if you're working creatively, so the argument as to why it's good to have a good grip on different composition techniques is quite easy to make.

I'm not so concerned with the actual artistic product, but more with the person making it and how they interact with the world.

4 hours ago, AngelCityOutlaw said:

You feel this need to come into these threads and keeping asserting how "originality" and "experimentation" is so great and there is no objective higher standard because you're insecure about your own music.

I said absolutely nothing about originality. You can look up all of my posts, I never even use the word. I don't think it's possible (or important) to try to be original, it should be secondary to do 1) Having fun composing and 2) writing what you want to hear. IF what you want to hear isn't super original, so what? Who cares?

Also, insecure people don't put their work out there for people to listen and judge, much less thank overly aggressive idiots like you when they give feedback. I don't think you understand that this venue of attacking my character is hopelessly pointless, but please go on, it's amusing as I mentioned previously.

5 hours ago, AngelCityOutlaw said:

Notice how you completely failed to offer an explanation as to why people prefer the works I mention?

Burden of proof is on you, it's YOUR argument. YOU have to put out the argument, not me. You haven't (or can't) so I pointed that out. You're still not doing it now. What are you waiting for?

1 hour ago, SSC said:

A value judgement has to be made by someone. That someone is a human being. If you're asking me what's more "valuable" without an observer to render that judgment then you're more stupid than I imagined. Good job.

Here we go again. "There has to be someone to make the judgement!" But then you'll turn around, like you are here, and say "Well prove to me that X work of art is greater than Y with empirical data." Scroll to past posts if you've forgotten.

1 hour ago, SSC said:

I'm not so concerned with the actual artistic product, but more with the person making it and how they interact with the world.

I know you aren't because you embrace this materialist/individualism. The job of an artist is to create art, so putting more value on the person creating rather than the stuff they're supposed to create makes no sense. As I keep referring to: The divine economy of goods. You ought to concern yourself with the artistic output.

A good example of this is when bands change their style and experience fan backlash and then they're like "oh, you just need to be more open-minded." No, people don't actually like bands. They like music. And if they don't like the new music someone is putting out, then too bad. Your "artist first" thinking, is what leads to this entitlement of demanding your fans accept whatever you crap out because "loyalty" or something.

1 hour ago, SSC said:

I said absolutely nothing about originality. You can look up all of my posts, I never even use the word. I don't think it's possible (or important) to try to be original, it should be secondary to do 1) Having fun composing and 2) writing what you want to hear. IF what you want to hear isn't super original, so what? Who cares?

Backpedal harder. You may not have said the word directly, but this is exactly what your posts are about. Let's refresh your memory

Our ongoing dispute here originated because when I said that composers should be more concerned with writing good music than desperately trying to be "different", you flipped your sh! t. Arguing that being as good as something else equates to "discount version of" and blasting it as a "worthless opinion". You were previously arguing this with Monarcheon when she expressed her disdain of musicians obsession with "originality".

Anyone with an IQ greater than a shoe size can read all this and tell that you have some real serious hang-ups about "rules for good art".

1 hour ago, SSC said:

Also, insecure people don't put their work out there for people to listen and judge, much less thank overly aggressive idiots like you when they give feedback. I don't think you understand that this venue of attacking my character is hopelessly pointless, but please go on, it's amusing as I mentioned previously.

No it's perfectly relevant because it demonstrates that you don't actually know wtf you're talking about. 

1 hour ago, SSC said:

Burden of proof is on you, it's YOUR argument. YOU have to put out the argument, not me. You haven't (or can't) so I pointed that out. You're still not doing it now. What are you waiting for?

The proof is right in front of you. Do you really lack the self-awareness to realize that nobody else seems to agree with your ravings?

All the stuff I've mentioned is the benchmark of academia, preserved in museums that people will travel thousands of miles just to see it, have been put into national archives as "culturally or historically significant", are known the world over, are still a regular part of musical repertoire hundreds of years later, people make video essays wondering wtf happened to film music and get millions of people watching because they wonder too, John Williams is the most oscar-nominated living person, it just goes on like this.

And your response to all that is "That's an appeal to crowd fallacy lolz"

The one thing all this stuff has behind it is someone who shows mastery over their respective craft, obvious in their work to everyone but you apparently.

This will be my last post to you on this matter because frankly, listening to someone try and refute that living up to a high standard is more important than being all unique and individualistic when they themselves put out fairly lackluster material, is like a medical student listening to advice from a snake oil salesman.

Quote

This will be my last post to you on this matter because frankly, listening to someone try and refute that living up to a high standard is more important than being all unique and individualistic when they themselves...

Oh, ok. Well, cheers then! Thanks for all the laughs and have a good one. Do try to learn how to make a proper argument without attacking people or using fallacies, since that is rather pathetic and intellectually bankrupt.

@SSC I strongly recommend you to be more humble. Also I wouldn't rely so much on science. And music is not academia, it's an Art. Also you seem to think that education, and musicology makes us nowadays better, more wise and knoledgeable than old masters. Remember: Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Vivaldi, Haendel and many many others, they were not professors.

On 1/29/2019 at 3:54 AM, SSC said:

I mean, any properly educated composer can write a fugue like Bach's, and I suspect even computers will do this once we get far enough with machine learning.

No, they can't, and computers will not be able to write fugues like Bach. Ability to obey the rules of counterpoint isn't all, it doesn't mean that the work has any artistic value, not to say value equal to Bach. You have to be very arrogant to think you are able to compose like.

Discussion with you is like discussion with a person of enlightement era; they thought that one who doesn't have formal education has nothing to say.

On 1/29/2019 at 3:54 AM, SSC said:

Bach's a funny example in that there were many pieces attributed to him that weren't his and we are actually still suspecting there are quite a few more that aren't either.

That's not the point, wether it was Bach who wrote those pieces, These pieces exist, so they must be written by someone in the past.

14 minutes ago, Pietro17 said:

Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Vivaldi, Haendel and many many others, they were not professors.

Why don't you research their lives a little more? Specially Bach? He was a master pedagogue above all. There are so many composers that gave lessons and taught and helped other composers. Hell, many of them actually wrote musicology work (theory books, essays, ETC.) If any of them had the access to knowledge we have right now, who knows what kind of stuff they would've done!

14 minutes ago, Pietro17 said:

No, they can't, and computers will not be able to write fugues like Bach.

My crystal ball is sadly broken, but considering I've done work on machine learning AI and have people who are researching that right now, it's pretty much a matter of time until it does a "good enough job" that nobody except the most expert can tell the difference. And then with more time, nobody should be able to tell. After all, you don't want to emulate Bach himself, you want to copy his work and there's so much of it out there that studying it is not hard. I don't think people are so magical that composing (or doing any art related thing) is exclusive to us. It just takes a more complicated model of AI to do the exact same thing. In fact, well, you could as well write a program that makes serial music like the best of them and nobody would be able to tell. Just in Bach's case and so in styles that are more well known and familiar is harder to "fake" it, so to speak, but it's far from impossible.

14 minutes ago, Pietro17 said:

These pieces exist, so they must be written by someone in the past.

Or in the present. I know a composer who actually managed to get the goddamn Mozarteum to accept a "lost" mozart work he wrote himself, which is retarded. He had to actually immediately admit to having written it before it was canonized. This goes to show just how ridiculous this is in reality and it's a huge problem in the art world in general. You have millions of people who are technically just as skilled, or more, than any of the old composers enough to make spurious works that pass just about every stylistic test. It's just a reality of the modern world.

1 hour ago, SSC said:

Why don't you research their lives a little more? Specially Bach?

Why don't you stop presuming that other people don't do research? Are you the only one educated here? Well, I can't remind myself that Bach held a professor title. Yes, he was a master pedagogue, but above all he was a genius artist. And no, he wasn't a professor.

1 hour ago, SSC said:

There are so many composers that gave lessons and taught and helped other composers. Hell, many of them actually wrote musicology work (theory books, essays, ETC.)

Yes, the helped each other, because they knew how to do that, not because they had a degree or held a professor title. They weren't educated executors of rules. They were artists.  Again: Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, Haendel and Vivaldi didn't have a degree in composition. In anything actually.

This discussion is now off-topic

1 hour ago, SSC said:

You have millions of people who are technically just as skilled, or more, than any of the old composers

Yes, and I have a submarine in my room. Do you have a scientific research for that claim? Why don't we know those people? If now there are millions of such people, so there had to be thousands of such people in times of Mozart. Why do we know only Mozart and Haydn and not them? As I said before, technical ability isn't enough to create good art.

I think old composers deserve more respect from you. If you think that your technical skills are as good as Mozart's, then think about it: you've learnt it, they created it. Your attitude towards old masters is like attitude of a geologist towards a rock.

1 hour ago, Pietro17 said:

Why don't you stop presuming that other people don't do research? Are you the only one educated here? Well, I can't remind myself that Bach held a professor title. Yes, he was a master pedagogue, but above all he was a genius artist. And no, he wasn't a professor.

How could he possibly be "A professor", if that's entirely anachronistic to his era? That's like saying he wasn't a computer scientist. The point is, he did many of the things "professors" actually are supposed to do. Hence my point and equivalence.

1 hour ago, Pietro17 said:

Yes, the helped each other, because they knew how to do that, not because they had a degree or held a professor title. They weren't educated executors of rules. They were artists.  Again: Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, Haendel and Vivaldi didn't have a degree in composition. In anything actually.

Again, you're talking as if you could just get a degree like that in the 1700s/1800s. I really don't get your point here. There is nothing contradictory in both being a musicologist and an artist, as basically everyone you mentioned was both things.

1 hour ago, Pietro17 said:

Why don't we know those people?

Do you know of the Pareto Distribution? Applied to classical music it means that basically 80% of the music played by orchestras and interpreters was written by 20% of the composers. In reality this means that Bach, Beethoven, Tschaikovsky and Mozart (I think this is the order) dominate 80% of the played music in the WORLD, with the rest of the 20% being occupied by a bunch of other dead people we already are quite familiar with. So, everyone else (all of us) have to complete for that 20% left of what's being actually played, and that's why, no matter how great or super amazing you are, the odds that you'll trump one of those warhorses are so minuscule that they don't even matter.

1 hour ago, Pietro17 said:

I think old composers deserve more respect from you. If you think that your technical skills are as good as Mozart's, then think about it: you've learnt it, they created it.

But they didn't create it either. Mozart didn't invent what he was doing, nor any of the old warhorses. All of them learned from the musical language of the time and their peers (and family, in some cases.) The "original" stuff these people did wasn't so original when you realize that at the same time they existed there were others doing just as much. This is like people discovering Zelenka for example, which Bach admired, only because he named him in something he wrote (I think it was a letter, but I don't remember right now.) His style and technique are really pretty great, but the dude was lost in the shuffle, as was Krebs, Bruhns, etc etc. Hell, Zelenka had a world premiere for something he had written but never performed a few years ago.

I don't put people on pedestals, because I understand why they are where they are. They were nothing but people with very good circumstances that allowed them to devote a huge chuck of their time to music when most people around them were struggling to get by. That circumstance was enough to catapult them into a status that was extremely rare for its time. Most of the people you mentioned had extremely successful (almost absurdly so) lives. That they did things you (And others) like is perfectly fine, but think for a second that people like Schubert were 100% irrelevant during their actual existence and Rossini was a superstar. That if it wasn't for curiosity Bach (senior)'s music would've been entirely lost. Remember that his sons were much more successful than he ever was as a composer, but they are barely known now by anyone that isn't a composer and actively studies music (specially music history.)

And another thing, dead people don't deserve any respect from me, nor from you. We have to compete with their undying massively popular music (again, Pareto Distribution,) and that alone is pretty irritating no matter what music you write. People don't give a damn about you, not because of what you do or don't do, but because you aren't Beethoven. Just so you see how this wasn't just our problem, Wagner in one of his letters to Liszt actually addressed this directly and wished his music be not played after his death as he wanted to make way for new composers (he knew very well how hard it had been to get to where he was, and most of that was pure luck.) Of course nobody cared about what he wanted, he was already "in" the top 20%.

Also, I know it outrages you, but seriously there's people who can IMPROVISE 5-6 voice fugues just as well Bach could have written them, much like Bach himself probably could (as he was much more well known as an organist.) This stuff isn't superhuman, it's just decently high IQ coupled with proper study and practice. Don't be so naive. Hell, who knows, but maybe eventually you'll be able to do stuff like this too if you keep your hard work and consistent study. Never consider any of those dead guys impossible geniuses, or you're just doing yourself a disservice.

Maybe you'll find that you're more brilliant than they ever were.

Jesus...he's still going! 😂

"Guys, I swear I have no insecurity about this stuff but let me write another 5 paragraph rant!"

3 hours ago, SSC said:

This stuff isn't superhuman, it's just decently high IQ coupled with proper study and practice. Don't be so naive. Hell, who knows, but maybe eventually you'll be able to do stuff like this too if you keep your hard work and consistent study. Never consider any of those dead guys impossible geniuses, or you're just doing yourself a disservice.

You are suffering from some serious cognitive dissonance.

You've spent a number of threads now, several pages each, arguing against the notion that gold standards exist and should be upheld because they cannot be scientifically proven to exist, but then argue one can achieve this kind of work with "hard work, practice" and you even use the word "proper" several times now. "Proper" by definition refers to an accepted "correct" means of doing something. This can only exist if we collectively accept certain things as objectively better than others.

In simpler terms: Common practice 

Seriously man: Check your ego, and spend more time actually practicing music, improving your singing and recording quality, etc. and then maybe these kinds of conversations won't offend you so much.

Because for your claim that "you too can do stuff like this with hard work and consistent study" your own work doesn't appear to show you can.

12 minutes ago, AngelCityOutlaw said:

Jesus...he's still going!

And I thought you stopped? Words (specially your own) don't mean much to you, do they?

12 minutes ago, AngelCityOutlaw said:

Because for your claim that "you too can do stuff like this with hard work and consistent study" your own work doesn't appear to show you can.

Ooh, you still got some fight left in ya, eh? Nah, you're just overwhelmingly jealous of my achievements as a composer, let's all admit that right now before you embarrass yourself even further. I mean, you're obsessing about my music as it is, which I guess is flattering, but you really should just mind your own business at this point if all you have are ad hominems, lol.

1 hour ago, SSC said:

And I thought you stopped? Words (specially your own) don't mean much to you, do they?

Ooh, you still got some fight left in ya, eh? Nah, you're just overwhelmingly jealous of my achievements as a composer, let's all admit that right now before you embarrass yourself even further. I mean, you're obsessing about my music as it is, which I guess is flattering, but you really should just mind your own business at this point if all you have are ad hominems, lol.

 

😂

16 hours ago, AngelCityOutlaw said:

Seriously man: Check your ego, and spend more time actually practicing music, improving your singing and recording quality, etc. and then maybe these kinds of conversations won't offend you so much. 

Nothing left to say

I think it's time to end this shitstorm

Yes, and I wish this thread had stuck to the topic.

3 hours ago, ferdi9749 said:

Yes, and I wish this thread had stuck to the topic.

 

There is light at the end of the tunnel.

Florid language and pretentious descriptions that try to guilt people into appreciating all kinds of "modern art" aren't working anymore. This second, Weimar-Republic-style era, and the absence of objective beauty standards is coming to an end. It's especially being rejected by younger millenials and gen z.

You see this in young musicians like JJay Berthume. This kid is graduating college this year and he's already going places. Scored some video games and writing symphonies in highschool and he's very reminiscent of Hollywood's "Golden Age" composers.

John Powell is like the go-to for animated movies these days and his scores are just brilliant. Incredibles 2 is also a smash success with brilliant music.

 Video games like Soul Calibur favour composition that is also of high quality

Then there's Alma Deutscher

An entire generation is growing up with these kinds of things to look up to. There are young people now who want to write like John Powell or Giachinno does instead of Hans. They're rediscovering Beethoven, John Williams, Vivaldi, and the like.

Scholars are taking note of the fact that the world is actually becoming more traditional on the whole; not less. We're currently experiencing the largest surge of religion in history, with secular people poised to become the minority compared to Evangelical Christians and the like in the next 200 years. Russia is increasingly embracing its Imperial past, and basically defying the Romanovs, who were made saints in 2000.

So what's the take away here?

People will always default back to the ideas of their cultures that always worked. The eternally-good, the eternally-beautiful ideas.

Music is no exception. 

This is an interesting point of view. But i must admit that it still doesn't convince me.

"Going back to.." will always be a bad way with to face current problems. So, just going back to tonality or aping ( think it is a word ) past composer's style will not be the end of the tunnel. Alma Deutscher is certainly a genius in music, but her composing style is dead ( not absolutely denying her skills ). It doesn't match our times...it is not music fr 21th century people.

Just going back to tonality is not the fix to our problem, we must entirely rethink the way we compose, because we have to remember that we have to offer pleasure to our listeners, not ask for efforts to listen to our music ( Stating this just because history has shown that you can propose difficult listenings until a certain point, but moving too away from the commonly accepted is a waste of time ) . And for me, composing 40 minutes symphonies, in old styles that are no longer understood at their full from the audience, is asking too much.

In fact, we have to move forward as never before. The way we compose must be entirely re-elaborated, thinking to be played by living humans ( and not sample libraries ) and to be listened by real humans ( and not just internet surfers ). Only this way music that is actually composed and not " songwritten " can come back to life.

This is a really harsh situation, but if we want music to survive we have to take back our audience, remembering we have to please them in a completely new way.

2 hours ago, ferdi9749 said:

Going back to.." will always be a bad way with to face current problems

But it's not.

For example: Would you say you support democracy? 

That's an old way of thinking. Very old, in fact. Same with the idea of the senate. Feudalism and Monarchy are much newer. But I thought "Going back to..." was always bad?

2 hours ago, ferdi9749 said:

Just going back to tonality is not the fix to our problem, we must entirely rethink the way we compose, because we have to remember that we have to offer pleasure to our listeners, not ask for efforts to listen to our music ( Stating this just because history has shown that you can propose difficult listenings until a certain point, but moving too away from the commonly accepted is a waste of time ) . And for me, composing 40 minutes symphonies, in old styles that are no longer understood at their full from the audience, is asking too much.

What you propose here is to treat the audience as idiots. I get it, but that's the exact antithesis of your OP.

Nobody has any difficulty "understanding" Beethoven's 5th, Holst (which is often mistaken for Star Wars even today), or any of that. No need to be 40 minutes long, either.

2 hours ago, ferdi9749 said:

In fact, we have to move forward as never before. The way we compose must be entirely re-elaborated, thinking to be played by living humans ( and not sample libraries ) and to be listened by real humans ( and not just internet surfers ). Only this way music that is actually composed and not " songwritten " can come back to life.

Progress for progress' sake is pointless if that progress is not as good as the thing that came before.

and what do you propose exactly? Everything you're saying in this part of your post can be solved by exactly what I'm talking about.

2 hours ago, ferdi9749 said:

Alma Deutscher is certainly a genius in music, but her composing style is dead ( not absolutely denying her skills ). It doesn't match our times...it is not music fr 21th century people.

The entire premise of your thread here is that modern "high quality" stuff for 21st century people sucks. Okay, well — you can only make that assertion if you have some prior benchmark to compare it to.

Her composing style is not "dead". If it were dead, she'd not be filling concert halls, getting 100s of thousands of views, etc. Dubstep is dead. It was new. It was different

So, we can't go back to the things that were great before that everyone still enjoys because of reasons that no one is quite clear on; it seems to be a "just because" scenario, and we have to "go forward" but no one ever seems to be able to put forth a new standard that is widely-accepted as being better than the previous ones. How is the logical answer here anything but "uphold the prior standard".

Look at rock music. There's been tons of rock music made since the mid-90s, but it gets very little airplay compared to all the stuff from the 70s - early 90s, and it's still the big bands from that era that everyone pays to see. Why? Because they were better. They had great songs, good production values, and musicians who could actually play.

AC/DC, Aerosmith, Van Halen...they're still as popular as ever, 40 years on. It's still music for "21st century people" and will be for the foreseeable centuries. They are "timeless" just like Vivaldi or Jerry Goldsmith.

2 hours ago, ferdi9749 said:

This is a really harsh situation, but if we want music to survive we have to take back our audience, remembering we have to please them in a completely new way.

Music isn't going to die lol

When you try desperately to create "new" styles and stuff, you either get: Short-lived trends and/or a Weimar Republic, modern-day "modern art" scenario. Where people just dress up their subpar, inane tat as something deep and meaningful with a lot of florid language and crap.

This isn't deep and meaningful. It's just bull$h!t

The harsh reality is that there is a finite amount of things that most humans consider aesthetic and we've existed more than long enough to know what those things are. In fact, there is just about no current plight in which history does not have the answers for.

The solution here is to uphold the high standards set before us in the past rather than try to re-invent the wheel into a crappier version of what it used to be.

In other words: If it ain't broke, don't fix it. 

It seems you misunderstood me.

Never talked about progress for progress sake, but progress for art's sake ( meaning art as description of beauty, if you want ).

I would never treat my audience as idiots. But if I compose something, better keep in mind the way people today " receive"  music...2/3 minutes tracks, lyrics and singing, very high volume. If I want to be sincerely appreciated I must keep in mind this thing are lowering the "listener's quality...so I have to deal with them.

I agree with yoy about the desperate ways to create originality and new standards, and I also agree with the uphold prior standards solution...but this is a theoretical idea...now we have to find the correct way to applicate it.

Alma Deutscher fills the concert halls because she is a child prodigy...not because her style. There are tons of composers that use her language but no one has the enormous success she has...the difference obviously is in the age of composers.

If maybe we would come back to those times were new music was composed with the aim of being played, we could have better times. Think about it...before romanticism music was composed because people needed something to play. Maybe playing ( mainly )dead people is what keeps us back.

Just throwing there some ideas for the sake of discussion...no thesis here.

On 2/1/2019 at 10:15 AM, ferdi9749 said:

In fact, we have to move forward as never before. The way we compose must be entirely re-elaborated, thinking to be played by living humans ( and not sample libraries ) and to be listened by real humans ( and not just internet surfers ). Only this way music that is actually composed and not " songwritten " can come back to life.

This is a really harsh situation, but if we want music to survive we have to take back our audience, remembering we have to please them in a completely new way.

You are extremely interesting. You know, I kept coming back because once I understood you weren't making a disguised plea to traditionalism, this stuff started to haunt me. I think I get what you mean now. Let's see, you mean a "common practice" but not necessarily rooted in traditional stuff nor (traditional) modern stuff either. I think your point is maybe more philosophical in nature than practical.

On 2/1/2019 at 12:21 PM, ferdi9749 said:

If maybe we would come back to those times were new music was composed with the aim of being played, we could have better times. Think about it...before romanticism music was composed because people needed something to play. Maybe playing ( mainly )dead people is what keeps us back.

Classical music is a dead genre mostly because performing it is very difficult and time-consuming and the people who can actually do it are few. Those few people are probably going to play what brings in the $$$ so that's the Pareto distribution from earlier, that means only overwhelmingly popular pieces and composers "everyone knows." It's really really hard to change any of this so long as money is the main drive. Hence why all the experimental stuff happens in universities, it's the reason why you have those spaces in the first place. Sadly, almost none of it survives its contact with the "real world."

So if you compose music for people to play, you also need to give them a reason to play it, so what happens is that you end up with a lot of stuff that sounds like discount Beethoven, Bach, etc etc, because you want to tap into that "star power" of those warhorses. It's, again, why nobody who does that really could ever outshine them. If they become too different, it's a niche and they end up forgotten. If they do exactly the same thing, why bother when the originals are still around?

On 2/1/2019 at 11:57 AM, AngelCityOutlaw said:

In my opinion, this isn't deep and meaningful. I don't like it.

There, fixed it for ya. Y'know, people are capable of liking things you don't, I know it's shocking but that's just the "harsh reality."

Nothing can be born from itself, as a logical fact. So, no way we can give up tradition...even the most "modernist" are tied to tradition in one way or another...Stating that one comes from no tradition is like stating he has no mother...nonsense.

You touched an interesting point...and I agree with you. In a super fast world, based on impressions and easy things, people are more fascinated by the "immediately reacheable", and music is no exception, from both listeners and players sides.

What can we do? We should learn from history I think. Which was the most flourish age for music composers? It was the romanticism. Why? Because music was played A LOT and by lots of people ( just think to the upright piano invention ). And for sure I am not just referring to Chopin, Schumann and the big ones who composed for pros...I am specially referring to those who composed for amateurs , since music playing was finally out from "aristocracy supremacy " . Regarding this, nowadays things are not that different...there is a big amount of musicians.

"Classical music" composed today is embarassingly difficult to play, and to understand...to quote your point of view, why should one prefer something even more difficult to play and to understand, than Beethoven?

So if this "revolution" has to be, I think it must come from down. To put it easy, I think that composing for amateurs can be a good starting point for this try to revive music...a very strong will to compose lots of music, and also an help for composers to make a living. Imagine having commissions from 4-5 amateur pianists and maybe some small chamber group...All people playing for the sake of playing. I would be extremely excited by the idea.

I am pretty sure that once a similar trend is established, things would be much more easier for us composers to "take back the concert halls".

2 hours ago, ferdi9749 said:

What can we do? We should learn from history I think. Which was the most flourish age for music composers? It was the romanticism. Why? Because music was played A LOT and by lots of people ( just think to the upright piano invention ). And for sure I am not just referring to Chopin, Schumann and the big ones who composed for pros...I am specially referring to those who composed for amateurs , since music playing was finally out from "aristocracy supremacy " . Regarding this, nowadays things are not that different...there is a big amount of musicians.

Hm, I don't know. I think right now we have such an overwhelming amount of musicians but most of them are not capable of playing I'd say 80% of the music composed. I do get what you're trying to say tho, we need to get more people engaged in the "process" so to speak, of writing and playing music. I don't think it has to be easier or more difficult than X composer, Beethoven is plenty difficult as it is, but it has to be a match for the person's ability and motivation.

2 hours ago, ferdi9749 said:

So if this "revolution" has to be, I think it must come from down. To put it easy, I think that composing for amateurs can be a good starting point for this try to revive music...a very strong will to compose lots of music, and also an help for composers to make a living. Imagine having commissions from 4-5 amateur pianists and maybe some small chamber group...All people playing for the sake of playing. I would be extremely excited by the idea.

The problem is people aren't willing to pay for commissions, in my experience, unless they know they'll get a return on investment (they're actually already giving concerts.) The economics of this don't work unless, again, you're in an university. People aren't just going to practice and give out their time for nothing, even if some people are willing to do it "For the love of art," financial investment is a big deal.

2 hours ago, ferdi9749 said:

I am pretty sure that once a similar trend is established, things would be much more easier for us composers to "take back the concert halls".

It's a money thing, in the end. You can just brute force your way through most of these problems by throwing money at it, you can pay musicians and rent out halls, pay for rehearsals, etc. The main issue is, who has this kind of money? It doesn't guarantee you'll be successful, people still need to want to go to your concerts, but you can put out as many as you want at a loss until you break through. I know people who've done this, specially if they held a different profession that paid well at the same time. I mean, unless you're renting an entire orchestra, this isn't such an extreme expense, at least it hasn't been for me when I've done it.

And there are other ways too, but I find that once you have a track record of putting out good visited and well reviewed concerts, stuff happens much faster. It's still hard to get that initial push and that's usually what university should help you with, but often they don't. Specially if your music is a niche genre.

This is not a topic easy to treat because of the number of "enemies" quality music has today. The bad music, the recording industry, the money, the academicism, the unacceptance of mediocre performances...there is such an enormous number of things that should change...

But I keep thinking that composing for amateurs is a good road...because it would solve a good number of these problems.

1) You are forced to compose in a comprehensible language if you want your committers to enjoy the work. Esthetics would be valued again.

2) You will have the enormous pleasure of hearing your own music....even if bad played. The worst human will always be better than the best midi mockup, I would say.

3) For its nature, composing for amateurs would kill academicism  and would accept amateur players.

I understand that this perspective cannot be exciting for every composer, but in one way or another we must create a path for ourselves...and I think minimalists composers ( especially pianists ) have understood this pretty well.

30 minutes ago, ferdi9749 said:

This is not a topic easy to treat because of the number of "enemies" quality music has today. The bad music, the recording industry, the money, the academicism, the unacceptance of mediocre performances...there is such an enormous number of things that should change...

Apathy is the problem there. It's not that "quality" (whatever that is) has enemies or not, is that a lot of people don't care because they have too many options. The point you can always go back and listen to whatever recording of whatever music you want, forever, is what pretty much killed much of the appeal of live performances. This came up actually with composer John Sousa when he argued that the phonograph was going to destroy musical tradition, his fear was that instant access to music will make people forget how they used to share and do music together. I think he was right in that regard, but he did not foresee the other ways that access allows people to know things they wouldn't otherwise have ever heard.

Oh, here's the actual thing Sousa said:

Quote

These talking machines are going to ruin the artistic development of music in this country. When I was a boy ... in front of every house in the summer evenings, you would find young people together singing the songs of the day or old songs. Today you hear these infernal machines going night and day. We will not have a vocal cord left. The vocal cord will be eliminated by a process of evolution, as was the tail of man when he came from the ape.

I think it's pertinent to the current topic.

Yes you are right.

But keep in mind that music institutions have made nothing to balance the situation. They raised the standards instead.

No talking, no clapping at the end of a movement ( are we kidding? ), no casual dressing, no sneezing ( are we kidding, again? ) , ecc.

The anormous amount of formality that goes with classical music has contributed to kill it, and this is why people need to discover again that music is a pleasure, not a formality. They MUST have fun, feel emotions or whatever they want, when they listen to classical music.

You talked about radio. Just go on youtube and give a look to views each piece, new or old, has....they are tons! This means people love this music, but the problem is that performance standard and formalities killed the interest in live concertos (as listeners and performers ).

Musicians must be able to show people how much valuable live performances are, then a flat recording. And we should make this with two things.

1) We should avoid as much as possible sample libraries. They kill everything...performance, music, job....literally everything. Once we accept releasing our music as tracks, on spotify for example, we lose a big part of our music nature...the goal to be played

2) We should create local communities to enjoy music, even our own music. In order to do this, the music should be comprehensible ( as written in the upper post )

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Technology is also a big deal for every kind of activity...people used to read, create things, paint, play, just think  or even ( appearently ) nothing...now they have full pocket "entertainment". And I am not referring to smartphones, I am referring to social media on smartphones.

1 hour ago, ferdi9749 said:

 

No talking, no clapping at the end of a movement ( are we kidding? ), no casual dressing, no sneezing ( are we kidding, again? ) , ecc.

The anormous amount of formality that goes with classical music has contributed to kill it, and this is why people need to discover again that music is a pleasure, not a formality. They MUST have fun, feel emotions or whatever they want, when they listen to classical music. 

No no no. Decorum is how you show respect in the concert hall. Respect for the musicians that need to address their next moves. Respect for the effort it takes to get a hundred trained musicians together. You don't start blabbing when  a golfer takes a swing do you? Same thing. And I would venture to say that people who are so bothered didn't kill classical because they never liked it that much anyway. Formality and pleasure are not mutually exclusive, not by a long shot.

 

 

You are right Ken320. ( But obviously I was not meaning talkin from start to finish of the concert...just don't worry too much of keeping things too serious and cold. It's music, not a surgery )

But traditions must go with their era, otherwise they are simply dismissed by the people.

If at the beginning of 20th century people had to conform this formal habits, since this was the only way to experience music, nowadays things are changed. And this is what i was meaning when in the previous post I talked about youtube listening vs live listening. Why people should go to concerts if they can listen to first class performers directly at home?

Against so strong opposites as recordings are, we can't help but coming to terms. Personally I wouldn't mind too much if someone speaks to another person while I am performing, or claps at the end of the first movement, instead of the whole quartet. Better having an imperfect audience ( if we really have to consider these as bad things ), than no one.

This is academicism. Just not for the musicians, but for the listeners...but it's nothing more than a set of rules used to raise the status of music...but now these rules are on of the poisons of "classical" music scene.

Whenever someone argues with me, stating that classical music is boring, I often make him notice that is not the music to be boring, but its setting...and in the end  always show them I am right.