new music

New music…hm. Well, to be honest, I guess I’d have to say I usually don’t like it. Here’s the thing though – that doesn’t mean I don’t like “new music.” What it does mean, is that most of the new music that is coming out these days, is no good, in my opinion, and thus I just don’t like it. I hate this idea that you have to like something just because its “new” or because who knows why. Its possibly one of the most annoying things for me when, after going to a concert with new music or a premier in it, I have to listen to my fellow musicians express their ignorant “deep thoughts” on the piece, or how they thought it was so great, or try to analyze what they thought they heard, but actually showing to everyone else what they don’t know in their head…the truth of the matter is, more than likely, they have no idea what they actually heard, especially if the composer thought he or she was being really intelligent and tried pulling some mathematical stunt or created some ‘genius’ new idea/sound/concept in a piece, which, lets be honest, didn’t work. The thing was, J.S. Bach did some really unbelievable, miraculous, new things... mathematically, fugally, etc., etc., but he was able to make it sound amazing at the same time. So unless the concert program explained what was going on in the piece, it was probably a mystery to all the listeners, and even if you did know what the math puzzle was, you probably still wouldn’t be able to hear what you knew to be true in the science of the piece. Most of the time, its just a lot of noise…literally like people playing whatever the heck they want, whenever the heck they want. To me, it seems as though this kind of writing doesn’t even take much talent…it just takes time. And often I wonder if you were to ask a composer who writes this kind of music to write something really beautiful, not necessarily emulating anyone, but just genuinely beautiful, I’ll bet they’d have a really hard time at it, if they could do it at all. Maybe I’m wrong…but it seems that would be the case. I’ve talked to a lot of composers over the years around school and what not, and its amazing how few of them actually play an instrument (let alone the instrument they are writing for), how few have a solid knowledge of the instruments they're writing for (ranges of the instruments, what they can do, and what they can't, etc.), how few have ever played in an orchestra (especially when that’s ensemble they’re writing for), or most amazingly, how few have heard much, if any, of the standard orchestral repertoire. I’ve talked to composers who have gone through college and never heard a Mahler Symphony…..never heard Wagner or Brahms….whatever. That is shocking, unbelievable, and unacceptable. It makes me think composition should not be allowed as an undergraduate degree. In fact, I think if you are going to be a composition student, it should be a graduate degree only, and it must be a prerequisite to have actually become proficient at an instrument, and possibly played in an orchestra…unless of course you’re like Mozart. It’s like people just want to make themselves love ugly music these days…which brings me to an interesting and scary point. Most people haven’t, but if you’ve ever read what the Communist Goals in 1963 were, take a look at numbers 22 and 23.

22) Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all form of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to “eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings,” substitute shapeless, awkward, and meaningless forms.

23) Control art critics and directors of art museums. “Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art.”

This is scary…especially since it seems to me that this is what most art has become…especially visual art. Obviously everyone has different tastes, and for those of you who love new music, I certainly don’t have a problem with that, but lets all be honest with ourselves and admit there’s a lot of really bad crap out there…which is the stuff I’m talking about. Now, don’t get me wrong. Not all new music is ugly. And as I said before, and let me reiterate: I don’t dislike new music, but if you were to ask me, I would say I tend to dislike new music, because most of it seems to be really poorly written these days.

Now that I’ve just gone off on a tirade against new music, let me tell you, there is good new music out there. I’ve heard it…and I don’t mind listening to it. I won’t name any specific pieces right now, for the funny reason that what I thing is good you may think is bad, and what I think is bad, you may think is good. Such is music. But again, you know the kind of music I’m talking about. Maybe I’m from a weird place…but I always thought music was written to be listened to, and if its not at least somewhat pleasing to listen to, no one will want to listen to it, thus it won’t be played. The good news is, I think composers are finally coming around these days to this realization. I mean, if you’re writing music for yourself, and not thinking about “what others think,” then fine, listen to it yourself…but don’t expect it to be performed. It used to be in the ‘60s and ‘70s composers were so into experimenting and developing new ideas, I feel like they totally lost a very important focus of music….to entertain. True, it is an expression tool as well, which is what was being emphasized (mood writing, like Schoenberg and Webern), but come on. I also have a problem with people who don’t like certain new music, or discredit something because they say its “too cheesy.” What does that even mean? I can admit, some things, if too simplistic, repetitive, or poorly written, can being boring or just bad…which goes into the same category I put poorly written new music. But say that, don’t call it cheesy. Just because something is tonal and may follow a harmonic progression which can be expected doesn’t necessarily make it cheesy. In fact, I’ve talked with new music advocates and they’ll discredit the tonal new music as cheesy, or not good. Why? I guess they’d ask me the same question to me for disliking their music…but I would honestly answer, if their new music was written well, I’d probably like it. Just because it sounds good, this apparently makes it bad. This breed of people seems to like anything execept tonality. So let me ask them a question...do you truly enjoy sitting through a concert with (in my opinion) really awful, poorly written new music? Truly enjoy? Or are you just trying to be some “open minded” and “artistic” hippy? If you can still say yes, then good…you’re able to enjoy something I can’t, but don’t expect me to come to the concert.

A lot of orchestras are promoting the idea of playing new music these days...which again, I don’t have a problem with, if its written well. Recently I was in a class at which Zarin Mehta (President and Executive Director of the New York Philharmonic) spoke. Something he said was very interesting to me. He said the New York Philharmonic has no problem playing some of the same standard pieces year after year, such as Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, because those concerts are always sold out. And in a city of millions, more than likely, even if you play it 10 years in a row, you’re going to sell out the house to different people each year (other than your regular subscribers, who probably still won't mind listening to it again...and yes, these concerts will usually be sold out). Not to mention, the orchestra members enjoy playing pieces that create excitement and are fun to play. Beethoven knew how to write an electrifying piece…and he was deaf. Mr. Mehta continued by telling us, interestingly enough, that in orchestras these days, its not necessarily just the old-timers in the orchestras who have a problem playing the new repertoire. It’s often primarily the young members. He said, it’s the young players who are new to the orchestra and are geared up to play the famous and exciting literature they’ve studied so hard and perfected their instruments for so long to play. The old-timers have played it all a million times. Of course this is a generalization and you’ll find the contrary to be true too, but its an interesting point. I think what it is, is that I believe music, and art for that matter, should be beautiful. That doesn’t mean it all has to be tonal, sing-songy, happy, or anything like that. It can be angry, ugly, atonal, whatever…but it has to be written well. I guess it’s just a really hard thing for me to explain…and I’m just really sick of it.

a dose of music: a classical injection - part 5

I’ve taken a slight hiatus from making entries, but I’m back, and here's my next listening suggestion. Recently, I’ve been on a little Requiem kick as I’ve had the opportunity to perform three of them in the past couple weeks, so I’d like to suggest listening to one of my favorites, Mozart’s Requiem. A Requiem is a sacred piece which is typically composed in the adjustable form (meaning movements can be retracted or added depending on likes of the composer) of the Roman Catholic Liturgy, and written primarily to be performed in a liturgical service, but may also be played in concert settings. They were, and are, primarily written as dedications to the souls of those who have passed away, and thus may also be played for special services or occasions such as Good Fridays, funerals, etc.

Mozart began composing his Requiem, his last composition, in 1791, but died before completing it. He only completed the first movement, and sketches have been found over the years from other parts of the Requiem. Because of this, there is debate as to how much of the piece was written actually by him, and subsequently many versions have been completed by numerous musicologists and scholars. The most famous and traditional version of which is called the “Sussmayr” edition. I hope you like the piece, and you might find that even if you think you’ve never heard it before, that you might recognize parts of it as its often used in movies, commercials, and other mediums.

my audio-media dilemma

I was trying to think of the last time I actually bought a CD. Its been a while…in fact its been so long, I actually can’t remember. A year or two ago I put all of my CDs onto my laptop, converting them into MP3 format, so, as I’m quite mobile these days, I can easily and quickly access all of my music at any time. Its very handy. I’m the type of guy who likes to have little clutter around, meaning I would rather have all of my music on my computer and carry around my laptop, rather than have 350+ CDs lying around. On the other hand, I’m also the kind of guy who likes to have a hard copy of everything too. So in one sense I like to have very little lying around, and at the same I like to have copies of everything filed somewhere. This is very contradictory, I know, and that may be just something weird specific to me, but somehow I think that maybe a lot of people are like this. It’s ironic these days that things such as recording methods like microphones, digital recording technologies, and highly researched recording techniques are at an all time high. Playback methods have also been tremendously improved, such as speaker qualities, surround sound technologies, sound eliminating headphones, etc. What’s ironic however, is that what people are actually listening to, largely MP3s these days, contradicts the big bucks they are spending to hear their music. I’ve heard it argued that CDs were even a step down from records. As I’ve been told, if you have the correct setup and all the right equipment, records can have and even higher quality sound than CDs. I don’t know if I buy this (as I certainly don’t have a problem with CDs), but if you do entertain this argument, media has been the one aspect which has constantly decreased in quality. While CDs are a high quality form of media, MP3s, comparatively, are incredibly dumbed down audio files, where many frequencies have been removed to save memory…or something (even though these days memory is dirt cheap). Its kind of a shame when you think of the quality of everything else which has been so meticulously researched and improved, and then something like an MP3 throws that all away. However, it also raises the question as to whether people would even hear the difference. Most people don’t have both a CD and MP3 copy of the same music to check it out, but even if they did, could they tell the difference? Interestingly, it sometimes comes down to your playback method as to whether you would be able to tell: for example, listening on your built in speakers on your laptop as opposed to some high quality Bose speakers.

There’s something about having that hard copy though. I’m always listening to MP3s on my computer, and don’t really think about what I’ve listened to most of the time. But the other day I got a CD from my school library, listened to it, and at the end, physically removed it from my player. It sounds stupid, but there was something rewarding about having a CD in my hand with a specific set of music that I knew I have finished, completed, and listened to. Not to mention, I was more conscious of what I had just listened to. I put it back into the case, and bam, done and done. Also, when you only have an MP3, you lack the tangibles, such as the cover inserts you might get in a CD; information and details which you can only get from the insert. In fact, you can try and be savvy by looking up the CD on Amazon.com or something and get some of the information, but you’re still going to miss a lot of it. This is where I also run into a dilemma. I like to have the information…who’s playing on certain tracks, where it was recorded, when it was recorded, some background info on the group, composer info, pictures, album art, whatever. But I don’t want the clutter, and I want to be mobile. You can’t get this information from an MP3 file (sometimes you can get limited album art, and some rudimentary info, but nothing very comprehensive). Basically I think there needs to be another audio-file revolution. Something needs to be developed that can still be portable (which is important these days), can somehow be both tangible and not, can provide all of the information needed/wanted, and still not sacrifice the audio quality which is more than capable of being captured and reproduced these days. It’s kind of weird when you look at video which seems to be improving all-around: HD televisions almost everywhere these days, cable stations are beginning to broadcast in HD, the cameras which people are recording with are beginning to be in HD, and HD-DVDs and Blue-Ray discs are now becoming more prevalent. Obviously I’m content with CDs and MP3s as I enjoy the benefits of both. But when I’m listening to music on my expensive speakers, I’d like to think that the time that went into rehearsing the music, the talent that was refined to perform it, and the technology that was developed to record it, will be justified in its reproduction.