Comments on: . . . Signifying Nothing

By: Seth Gordon

Seth Gordon — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 17:47:19 +0000

compared to the Great Dead Ones, rock/pop influenced composers are writing pretty lousy music ...to you. there isnâ€™t a single composer now who is doing music based on their rock/pop â€œrootsâ€ who is even remotely comparable in the quality of what they are doing to what Bartok did with his folk material, ...in your opinion. But of course, we don't know anything about your anonymous ass. So what your opinion is worth... ? You could be an asylum inmate who thinks he's Bartok for all we know. So, uh... to paraphrase someone: Who cares if you listen?

By: andrea

andrea — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 17:36:25 +0000

“Nobody in the mutual admiration society that is S21 could or would ever be guilty of such a thing, of course.”

my favorite is how people who make comments like this never provide a link to their own music, lest they risk entry into the mutual admiration society or accusations of being one of those who’d rather be a rock/pop musician…

By: us2

us2 — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 15:20:45 +0000

if you would like these “observations” to be discernable from open-mouthed drooling, you’re going to have to provide examples.
otherwise, this thread is so dead.

By: suckynymist

suckynymist — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 08:19:12 +0000

The point about rock/pop isn’t about avoiding the influence of anything. The point is that, compared to the Great Dead Ones, rock/pop influenced composers are writing pretty lousy music (which is not to say it is especially lousy within the general context of classical music being written these days, because, looking at it that way, it’s not particularly worse than anything else). But there isn’t a single composer now who is doing music based on their rock/pop “roots” who is even remotely comparable in the quality of what they are doing to what Bartok did with his folk material, for example.

Some classical composers who are rock/pop influenced might as well just go ahead and BE rock/pop musicians, because that’s what they really want, except it’s like they’ve got some kind of pretense about their place in the scheme of things that prevents that from happening.

Unlike ACD, I like a lot of rock/pop crap. But that doesn’t mean that adding whatever is the latest trend in the clubs to their music is going to convince me that anyone is a good composer, and yeah, doing that sort of stuff just might appear to be pandering. In fact, it might actually be pandering . Nobody in the mutual admiration society that is S21 could or would ever be guilty of such a thing, of course.

By: Graham Rieper

Graham Rieper — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 16:00:04 +0000

Who said they did or ever would make that suggestion? And who said you should avoid any influence or inspiration that comes to you? At all times a composer should go for whatever it is they want and love.
I think the point that was being made was that it’s a different world and there are different things in the world today to inspire one. These days it won’t likely be a Tyrolean folk tune. And the surrounding presence of jazz, rock, et al is not the same as folk music was two centuries ago. They are not merely vernacular forms, but dynamic scenes, full of artists of substance and ambition. A century or two ago, classical music was the only game in town for the “serious” composer. Now it isn’t.

By: andrea

andrea — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 11:08:44 +0000

but the point isn’t about who’s doing it well or badly. the point is that now, even though we have a rich amount of folk/pop/rock to inspire us, we’re supposed to avoid it. why? i don’t think the rather distant and god-like dead ones would have made that suggestion to their contemporaries.

By: us2

us2 — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 01:44:30 +0000

distant in the sense of time and situation. of course they are near to us as musical communicators…
sorry if you want to argue about every single thing, but this is getting oh so tiresome…

By: Walter Ramsey

Walter Ramsey — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 00:58:08 +0000

“somehow for many critiquing the classical establishment, the incorporation of todayâ€™s music is â€˜panderingâ€™ or â€˜ipod cultureâ€™ or somehow a sin, a line that shouldnâ€™t be crossed. why?”

I can’t quite parse your grammar here, whether you mean, those critiquing the classical establishment find the incorporation pandering, or that pandering etc are adjectives applied to those critiquing the establishment. I think you mean the latter, and if so, by singling those incorporating these elements as critiquers, you may have hit the nail on the head as to why they are themselves criticized (pandering, ipod culture), but at the same time we don’t bother when the older Masters do it, and that is because, the older Masters were not attempting to critique any establishment and therefore were not perceived as cynical, or were not the victims of cynicism, or at least this kind of cynicism. It only makes sense if someone is critiquing an establishment, that the basis of their critique will be challenged. And who wouldn’t have sympathy or understanding for this?

And to those who see such figures as Mahler and Beethoven distant and godly, godly I can accept, but read any good biography and look deeply into their photographs and letters, and they will be as real to you as your next-door neighbor!

Walter Ramsey

By: us2

us2 — Sun, 22 Oct 2006 22:31:04 +0000

i was responding more to us1 than you. I said not comparable, first because the situation of writing in 2006, as opposed to, say, 1820 or 1896 is so differentâ€“the game, the culture, the whole picture is differentâ€“and second, because it seems the comparison was between today’s composers in general, a wide ranging group who seem very real and mortal, and Mahler and Beethoven, two individuals who seem rather distant and god-like. They had plenty of contemporaries who incorporated folk and popular tunes badly.

By: andrea

andrea — Sun, 22 Oct 2006 21:42:02 +0000

how is it not comparable, us2? and of course, i don’t think it’s lousy, but acd seems to find it offensive. mr. ramsey, there’s a LOT of classical music out there that assimilates rock and pop. lots of people are doing this. and surely, some of it works, some of it doesn’t. my point is that it was okay for debussy to write cakewalks and it was okay for schubert to be folksy (HeidenrÃ¶slein, anyone?) and it was okay for a zillion renaissance composers to use l’homme armÃ©, but somehow for many critiquing the classical establishment, the incorporation of today’s music is ‘pandering’ or ‘ipod culture’ or somehow a sin, a line that shouldn’t be crossed. why?

and ‘unnamed source’ is a sucky pseudonym. at least ‘graham rieper’ elicits a half-assed chuckle…