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sevenhelz at 11:41am on 30/03/2009
sevenhelz at 11:41am on 30/03/2009I hate analysis of music. Well, that's a pretty strong word, but I think in a lot of cases it's ultimately pointless. Basic I-IV-V harmony and how useful it is to multiphonic instrumental players and improvisationists aside, the only use I can really see for it is for budding composers to understand better what's gone before. I don't think you should need to understand a piece just to listen to it - or you should be able to understand it within context, rather than having to do a lot of reading and work out exactly why it is like it is. This is what bugs me most about a lot of "contemporary" music (a term used for music up to 80 years old?!); one method of composition, while theoretically and ideologically very different to another, sounds exactly the damn same to the un-highly-trained ear. I suppose you could say that of all "art" music (another concept that I have issues with) but more traditional music does speak to laypeople in some ways. This is one of the reasons I can identify better with the spectral music aesthetic - there is an aesthetic appeal to it, intentionally created by the masters of what they claim isn't a genre so much as an attitude.
I also loved Tristan Murail's rather humble writing about composers necessarily taking up an audience's precious time, and owing them a worthwhile experience for it. I'll dig out the quote later.
x
ETA: This post inspired by an analysis of a piece by Murail. Perhaps it's the quality of this particular analysis, perhaps I'm a particularly good listener (heh, wev) but it reads like a detailed description of the piece. You could just, y'know, listen to the piece a couple of times... it may be lengthy, but I'm pretty sure your writing is lengthier.
Also, I'm looking for any writing on the unavoidable introduction of new spectra in the instrumental performance of spectral music. Which "problem" seems BLOODY OBVIOUS to me, but apparently no-one has written/spoken on it, except maybe Murail himself, but I can't find those interviews. Have enlisted the help of my tutor.
ION, Grisey writes more lyrical spectral music than Murail, presumably due to his different attitude to processes... it's more to my taste, anyway, was my point, before I get embroiled in the articles I've read which go on and on about different "schools" within this fairly obscure set of musics.
I also loved Tristan Murail's rather humble writing about composers necessarily taking up an audience's precious time, and owing them a worthwhile experience for it. I'll dig out the quote later.
x
ETA: This post inspired by an analysis of a piece by Murail. Perhaps it's the quality of this particular analysis, perhaps I'm a particularly good listener (heh, wev) but it reads like a detailed description of the piece. You could just, y'know, listen to the piece a couple of times... it may be lengthy, but I'm pretty sure your writing is lengthier.
Also, I'm looking for any writing on the unavoidable introduction of new spectra in the instrumental performance of spectral music. Which "problem" seems BLOODY OBVIOUS to me, but apparently no-one has written/spoken on it, except maybe Murail himself, but I can't find those interviews. Have enlisted the help of my tutor.
ION, Grisey writes more lyrical spectral music than Murail, presumably due to his different attitude to processes... it's more to my taste, anyway, was my point, before I get embroiled in the articles I've read which go on and on about different "schools" within this fairly obscure set of musics.
can has cookie?
Oh, please do!
I've never heard of spectral music, now I have something to hunt down.
I think that music analysis, like a great deal of artistic analysis, is a double-edged sword. I do think the more you know/understand the structure and history of these things, the more you can get out of it. There are different levels to appreciate things. Same with film criticism, lit criticism, paintings, etc. HOWEVER, much like you, I think the idea of aiming something purely at the crit level, without acknowledging that you are "taking up your audience's precious time" is just arrogant navel-gazing.
I mean, there's a place for it, but I think the better stuff tends to work on all the levels, not be deliberately obtuse for the sake of it.
When it comes to music, I subscribe to Duke Ellington's view of it: "If it sounds good, it is good."
(Actually, Duke was a gold-mine of quotes about this. There's also an apocryphal story of him sharing a cab with a classical conductor and asking what the 10 rules of musical construction were. After getting those 10 rules, Duke then wrote 10 songs each designed to break one rule specifically.)
can has cookie?
Spectral music is fascinating... if you listen to classical radio stations there's a good chance you've heard some but not known what it was (at least if you're like me and don't really listen to the blurb). I think I mentioned I tend to prefer Grisey over Murail; they're the founders essentially, so there's a place to start :)
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can has cookie?
Don't really listen to classical stations like I used to, so I will hunt it down direct.