# Stark difference between European intellectual and American composers



## Nick Batzdorf (Oct 16, 2018)

Two awesome pieces, but look at what Esa-Pekka Salonen says about his piece vs. what Andrew Norman says about his.


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## germancomponist (Oct 16, 2018)

Interesting!


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## NoamL (Oct 16, 2018)

They're alike in that they're both way too indulgent.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Oct 16, 2018)

I didn't see that, but if so then they're certainly entitled to be.

Both are fantastic pieces. Those are two of the very best composers of our time.


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## jonnybutter (Oct 16, 2018)

NoamL said:


> They're alike in that they're both way too indulgent.



It's their job to 'indulge' themselves.


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## CT (Oct 16, 2018)

I like to hear composers talk about the mechanics of their music as much as the soul of it, but I think Mr. Norman, in discussing the latter, offers a more useful bit of context for the audience. I hope I can hear that piece soon.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Oct 16, 2018)

miket said:


> I like to hear composers talk about the mechanics of their music as much as the soul of it, but I think Mr. Norman, in discussing the latter, offers a more useful bit of context for the audience. I hope I can hear that piece soon.



It's really amazing.

They recorded it live, so hopefully the record will be released soon.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Oct 16, 2018)

By the way, Salonen's piece doesn't sound at all cold and sterile like his description would suggest!


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## NoamL (Oct 16, 2018)

jonnybutter said:


> It's their job to 'indulge' themselves.



Is it? Music either works or it doesn't work, we composers don't get the benefit of those little white museum placards next to modern art that explain WTF you're looking at and what the artist's intent was.

(Although, I would additionally argue that the little white placards don't make modern art any more intelligible either, they just intimidate people.)

I wasn't making any comment on either piece's musical merit; haven't heard either one. Nor am I saying that all modern art is bad! Just that if it's good, it has to be good without the benefit of any little white cards.

I'm just making a comment against little-white-card-ism, in this case, composer statements, and particularly, composer_ manifestos_. 

Little white cards are all the more inapplicable in our field because music is an experience. It takes up a certain period of time, and the meaning of music exists in the mind while listening. If the audience didn't think of geological eras or whatever while listening to the music, then reading a composer's note before or after won't make the music more successful in that respect.

As Norman is showing, it is easy to conjure up images for the audience with essays about the music or even creative titles, but IMO this should be avoided and music should stand by itself with minimal titles (think Vivaldi or Beethoven) or no titles.

Salonen's note is if anything more indulgent than Norman's because it's using jargon that's only intelligible to people with a pretty good music theory background. Ordinary people don't have a clue what a hexachord is, they barely know what chromatic means, and reading this they will only come away with the impression "This music sure is technical" and I don't doubt that's the intent.


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## Dave Connor (Oct 16, 2018)

Nick, the performance from the anniversary concert is going to be available? That’s very good news if so. Incredible performance of a fantastic work.


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## CT (Oct 16, 2018)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> By the way, Salonen's piece doesn't sound at all cold and sterile like his description would suggest!



Yeah, I've heard it. Salonen does go on a bit in his program note there, but he's not at all a cold and academic composer.


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## David Cuny (Oct 16, 2018)

NoamL said:


> Is it? Music either works or it doesn't work, we composers don't get the benefit of those little white museum placards next to modern art that explain WTF you're looking at and what the artist's intent was.


Only... that's _exactly_ what these are: placards that explain WTF you're looking at and what the artist's intent was. 

Salonen makes me want to hear the music, and I'm more likely to enjoy and recall the music after reading the description. (And not just because it's less than half as long!)

But Norman is clever - instead of describing the _music_, he describes the _mindset_ of an imagined listener from the future, which invites the reader to take on that same mindset. He coyly suggests there _might_ be "a sense of sadness or loss that permeates the music", sort of like a hypnotist implanting a suggestion.

It's interesting to see how they use the opportunity to different ends.


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## gregh (Oct 17, 2018)

A trend in Brisbane over the last couple of decades has been the performers discussing the work with the audience before they perform it. I think it a very positive move - why not have an informed audience? Most of the works I am talking about are (local) premieres or at best available only in recorded form so the audience has no prior knowledge through which to gauge the work. I am not a fan of the idea that one can just listen to a piece completely de novo, utterly divorced from cultural experience. That makes no sense within what we know of human understanding of music. I have written about this quite a bit over the years and it is a topic I and others will be discussing this weekend here http://performancespace.com.au/events/realtime-in-real-time/


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## Gerbil (Oct 17, 2018)

Years ago, I was in an ensemble performing a work by Jonathan Harvey and he came on beforehand to talk about its components and structure. It might just have been the dullest thing I've ever sat through. It's fine if the composer is entertaining but a fair few speak far better with their music than in person so it's not always a good idea.

I have no problem with the approach of either composer in their blurb but finally the music has to speak for itself. Very often with the European approach you'll read what amounts to a rather dry mini-analysis of the work that is finally irrelevant when you come to hear the work because many of the details that mattered to the composer or delighted the musicologist are not always heard that way by the audience.


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## gregh (Oct 17, 2018)

Gerbil said:


> Ybut finally the music has to speak for itself.



how does music do that though - music is understood through the history of listening of the audience. There are no "noble savage" listeners


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## Gerbil (Oct 17, 2018)

gregh said:


> how does music do that though - music is understood through the history of listening of the audience. There are no "noble savage" listeners



Of course. But it finally either works for the listener or it doesn't regardless of what the footnotes say. The composer may have had the earth in mind when he composed it but that may not translate to what the listener hears. They may have images of a jungle in mind or no particular images at all when they hear it. 

Telling someone the piece is made up of hexachords is fine but most people aren't going to hear that or even understand it. It's like an architect explaining what type of support metal was used in the the construction of a building; interesting to a few other architects and builders maybe but we can't see it. We just see the final building. You can look at it and appreciate the effort that went in to creating it and the often very clever use of material but if you think it's pig ugly it doesn't really amount to much for you personally.

But it doesn't hurt to provide these descriptions or historical information about works. I avidly read all the details when I go to concerts or listen to a recording.


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## gregh (Oct 17, 2018)

Gerbil said:


> Of course. But it finally either works for the listener or it doesn't regardless of what the footnotes say.



of course to that as well


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## Pablocrespo (Oct 17, 2018)

Taking a sidestep here, Salonen´s Sibelius 5th is by far my favorite. He is a great conductor, and I will check his composer side!


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## MA-Simon (Oct 17, 2018)

gregh said:


> A trend in Brisbane over the last couple of decades has been the performers discussing the work with the audience before they perform it.


Imho that is the same as laugh tracks or comment boxes in reality tv shows. To explain to the listener how he should feel. I dislike it.


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## gregh (Oct 17, 2018)

MA-Simon said:


> Imho that is the same as laugh tracks ore comment boxes in reality tv shows. To explain to the listener how he should feel. I dislike it.


except none of the the pre-concert talks I have seen have anything to do with prescribing feelings at all. I cant remember anyone talking about the sorts of feelings people should have at all really - they'd be laughed at if they did most likely. Possibly a cultural difference at work here


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## NoamL (Oct 17, 2018)

gregh said:


> how does music do that though - music is understood through the history of listening of the audience. There are no "noble savage" listeners



"The music speaks for itself"

"The music is interpreted through people's history-of-listening"

I agree with both, and in fact these seem like the same statement to me... ordinary people don't have a conscious understanding of their history-of-listening lens. They can "feel" that Duke Ellington is doing "more" than first generation jazz and yet not "as much" as post 60s jazz. But they can't tell you _why_ their brain interprets it that way. And, if they are "noble savage listeners" and can't place Ellington in historical context at all because they've never heard _any_ 20th century music, then a program note explaining how Duke Ellington advanced the language of jazz does nothing for them.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Oct 17, 2018)

NoamL said:


> Little white cards are all the more inapplicable in our field because music is an experience



Hey, neither one of them used the word "detritus" in the program notes.

But look, fine art is also an experience. Of course these things are silly! I just found these two interesting in spite of the white card medium.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Oct 17, 2018)

Dave Connor said:


> Nick, the performance from the anniversary concert is going to be available? That’s very good news if so. Incredible performance of a fantastic work.



You were there too? Really great concert.

And yeah, they said they were recording the performance (so please be quiet).


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## Nick Batzdorf (Oct 17, 2018)

Pablocrespo said:


> Taking a sidestep here, Salonen´s Sibelius 5th is by far my favorite. He is a great conductor, and I will check his composer side!



Check out "Wing on Wing." It's on iTunes.

Unfortunately, this is a piece that doesn't translate 100% to recording, because he uses the space - sopranos and trumpets up in the balcony, Frank Gehry's voice coming from the speakers at the top rear of Disney Hall - but it's still great.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Oct 17, 2018)

gregh said:


> how does music do that though - music is understood through the history of listening of the audience.



Sure, music history is history.

Good music should grab you by itself, and then you can learn more about it (in this case) by reading the program notes.

Norman's piece is great to listen to without knowing the story he's telling (an audience 200 years from now).


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## Nick Batzdorf (Oct 17, 2018)

gregh said:


> except none of the the pre-concert talks I have seen have anything to do with prescribing feelings at all. I cant remember anyone talking about the sorts of feelings people should have at all really - they'd be laughed at if they did most likely. Possibly a cultural difference at work here



The truth is that most people aren't all that interesting when they're interviewed.

We've gone to a lot of movie screenings with panels afterwards, and you wonder how people that boring could have made an interesting film.

There have been exceptions, for example Tony Kushner (writer) talking about "Lincoln."


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## Dave Connor (Oct 18, 2018)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> You were there too? Really great concert.
> 
> And yeah, they said they were recording the performance (so please be quiet).


Not there, listened on KUSC which had fabulous sound. LA killed it.


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## JPQ (Oct 20, 2018)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> Two awesome pieces, but look at what Essa-Pekka Salonen says about his piece vs. what Andrew Norman says about his.




Hm firt name is Esa-Pekka not Essa-Pekka. I form Finland like this man and i know this.


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## mikeh-375 (Oct 20, 2018)

douggibson said:


> Is it that radical that some environments are designed to foster learning, and expanding on what one already knows.
> Perhaps some people enjoy learning new things, and details about how things are made.



Indeed. We should all be autodidactic philomaths. ......ok, ok, I heard the word on a (european) tv quiz and looked it up...


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## mikeh-375 (Oct 20, 2018)

JPQ said:


> Hm firt name is Esa-Pekka not Essa-Pekka. I form Finland like this man and i know this.



Priceless JPQ. I shouldn't laugh though (albeit in a gentle and friendly way- no offence intended!) because your English is better than my Finnish....
parhaat toiveet


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## ptram (Oct 20, 2018)

mikeh-375 said:


> your English is better than my Finnish....


Finnish is such an easy language!


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## Nick Batzdorf (Oct 20, 2018)

JPQ said:


> Hm firt name is Esa-Pekka not Essa-Pekka. I form Finland like this man and i know this.



Oops! Thanks, I'll edit my posts.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Oct 20, 2018)

gregh said:


> how does music do that though - music is understood through the history of listening of the audience. There are no "noble savage" listeners



Revisiting this thread (to fix my misspelling Esa-Pekka!), I thought of another way to say it: in this case - the Norman piece - reading the notes gives you something to focus on while you're listening. But it would still be outstanding to listen to without having read the story.

And on a related tangent, the same music cue can take on lots of different meanings. Anyone who's ever tracked a show using library music knows that.


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## mikeh-375 (Oct 21, 2018)

That's interesting Still_lives.
I wonder if it applies to seasoned geeks like me though. A lot of the time, I listen to music in an 'absolute' way, irrespective of any programme, unless there is a text setting of course. I can't help it as I am always fascinated by the mechanism and the consequences rather than any hype surrounding the piece and because I believe like Stravinsky did, that music expresses itself and does not need external stimuli. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a robot and still get very moved by the experience and I am not ignoring the inspiration one can get with an extra-musical theme, but any emotional reaction is often on my own terms, dictated by an aesthetic sense/preference derived from learning and proclivities. See...told you I was a geek.


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## mikeh-375 (Oct 21, 2018)

That's right up my alley Doug. Purchased. Thanks. It might alter my outlook, who knows.


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## gregh (Oct 21, 2018)

It is late here and I have just got off a plane after a long day as part of this http://performancespace.com.au/events/realtime-in-real-time/
so this is quick and possibly only slightly coherent. Pretty much all of this has a plausible often empirically supported basis in neuroscience
.

I have a materialist resonance model of art generated meaning - artworks can be seen as patterns of variability - or time varying probabilities - at various scales. The brain encodes experience as a time varying probability field - this is how sensory system activation presents at the neural membrane and is retained. Art works then - because of the highly reciprocal nature of brain connectivity - stimulate patterns of variablity that are already approximated by past encodings. These patterns of variability are associated with emotional states - the emotional states most common when those patterns of neural activity have occured across the entire past of the person. That accounts for the emotional valence of differening works - they "resonate" with different times int he person past.
But more importantly and more unknown is why some artworks induce revelatory states - why they really hit the spot. I think this is when new constellations of activity reach a critical threshold of activity such that the brain signals - this is important - and the sense of revelation is the emotional reflex of that brain signal.

Thus the great art experience - resonates with the primed brain (see Still_lives earlier post) bringing into conjunct resonance patterns of variability previously held separate and unconnected


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## jonnybutter (Oct 21, 2018)

NoamL said:


> Is it [their job to indulge themselves]? Music either works or it doesn't work, we composers don't get the benefit of those little white museum placards next to modern art that explain WTF you're looking at and what the artist's intent was.



I misunderstood what you meant. I thought you meant the composers were indulgent as composers, not that their descriptions were indulgent. I agree that music should stand on its own, but don't see any problem with them writing about it.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Oct 22, 2018)

still_lives said:


> In psychological studies, it's called priming



Right, but if I tell you this is sad music to play at a funeral...


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## gregh (Oct 22, 2018)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> Right, but if I tell you this is sad music to play at a funeral...



priming someone for sadness does not mean they will be sad -it means "sadness" has been brought to the forefront more in the evaluation of what is happening. So you priming everyone with "funeral" makes the interpretation of the music as inappropriate more or less inevitable. Whereas if you had primed everyone with "game show intro" their interpretations would be different. Setting up expectations and breaking them - a standard technique in writing etc - is an example of priming at work


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## Nick Batzdorf (Oct 22, 2018)

As I said, a cue can take on multiple meanings. My point is just that you can take the idea of "priming" to extremes.


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## gregh (Oct 22, 2018)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> As I said, a cue can take on multiple meanings. My point is just that you can take the idea of "priming" to extremes.


Not sure what those extremes would be Nick - no-one is saying that if you hear the word "night" then you suddenly think the sun has sunk below the horizon


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## Nick Batzdorf (Oct 22, 2018)

The extreme would be that example I posted!

If you wrote that cue to support a funeral, it probably wouldn't work very well.


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## bbunker (Oct 22, 2018)

I'm a little surprised I'm the first to mention this, but:

Is it really wise to assume that there is a "Stark difference between European intellectual and American composers" from two sets of program notes?

Maybe I should make a "Stark difference between American intellectual and European composers" with program notes by Morton Feldman and Ludovico Einaudi?


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## Nick Batzdorf (Oct 22, 2018)

The European intellectual approach has been going on for decades, bbunker.

It's certainly not something I just invented from reading two program notes.

I'm a fool, but not *that* much of a fool!


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## bbunker (Oct 22, 2018)

The European intellectual approach has indeed been going on for decades.

But - so has the American?

We've had Barry Schrader, Alvin Lucier, James Tenney, Pauline Oliveros, and the faculty list of virtually any American University. Kevin Ernste at Cornell. Working in the last few decades. 

Just in LA there's the Synchromy series, REDCAT's concerts, the Outpost concert series, and Electroacoustic presentations at virtually every composition department in town.

It's hard to find a composer of 'new music' coming from a music department now that doesn't have some kind of Electroacoustic, Sound installation or Acousmatic angle. And it's hard to find a department looking for faculty that doesn't require some kind of Electroacoustic portfolio.

I guess I'm most conflicted with the generalizing because the trend I've seen is just the opposite: the day of the spectralist school in France and the rest of the continent seems to be running out of steam, and the trend amongst those French composers is that they're drawing inspiration from...John Williams. Or - this is what's been conveyed to me, anyway. Younger American composers have definitely been moving in the opposite direction.

And then there's the trend of American composers since the Bang on a Can days to simplify the presentation of post-serial music, right? So I'd say that the avant-garde intellectual approach with a "it's cool, the music just does its thing, man" front is distinctly American.

I just don't think there's much truth in the generalization, is all.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Oct 22, 2018)

Whatever. The difference between the two descriptions just struck me as amusing.


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## robgb (Oct 22, 2018)

The mechanics of music bores the hell out of me. Music, for me, is instinctive. Comes from the gut. The heart. And it doesn't need to be explained.


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## muk (Oct 22, 2018)

robgb said:


> And it doesn't need to be explained.



To each their own. To me music gets even better if I understand why it is exactly in the form it is. With good music there is an explanation for every single note, why changing one single note would diminish the piece. There are things in music you can not appreciate if they are not explained. The opening of Mozart's Jenami concerto K 271, for example. It sounds just like any piano concerto by Mozart to the casual listener, when in fact it is of groundbreaking genius. I appreciate it a lot more since knowing what Mozart actually did there.

Funny how tastes differ. I find Esa-Pekka Salonen's text useful, if a little dry. Andrew Norman's esoteric ramblings I find unhelpful and naïve. Clearly he is a much better composer than philosopher.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Oct 23, 2018)

Andrew Norman told the story he's telling with his piece. I don't understand what's unhelpful or naive about that!

Youse all know about this, right? It's brilliant.

http://www.dominicirving.com/cccbsg/


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## Nick Batzdorf (Oct 23, 2018)

Examples:

"I coined the term 'analysis-aerophone-music' to describe my most radical approaches to modal composition. It is of paramount importance that choral, spatial idiophone-energies must never be allowed to become sub-linear, or sub-binarily complex. My latest piece begins with a rather microtonal 'tempo-non-linearity', before eclecticly transforming the existing technological material into a more post-Schoenbergly-semantic state, a process I term 'repetitively-polyphonic-modulating'. In my most recent work, collaborations, commissions and semantic elements are all used within non-linearly-stereophonic clusters, allowing the audience to interpret a variety of bitonal arrangements. My newest piece modulates, denies and non-linearly juxtaposes a massive variety of synthetic recording-resonances. By engaging in percussive opposing, I seek to overcome the existing visual models, and establish a more polytimbral and temporal paradigm."

Or:

"Recently, I have started to embrace music as a strongly-12-tone alternative to established forms of periodic tritone-resonators, which has made my work intervallically spatial. The digital consequences of deconstructing noises enables the use of a single semitone amongst many contrapuntal triads. The consonance is the single most important element in any graphic composition, and my own work seeks to explore (and generate) this in the context of 'fanfare-cluster-spaces'. The fact that arrangements tend to (at least in their integral state), disparately visualise, even in the presence of a strong movement, is, you will agree, patently absurd. My work is, in short, a re-imagining of the 'binary-linearities' school of contemporary 'pitch-set-microtone' composition. The most important tip I can give anyone is this: Never deny non-linear chord-structures; rather, endeavour to examine your traditionally-synthetic sculptures."


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## muk (Oct 23, 2018)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> Youse all know about this, right? It's brilliant.
> 
> http://www.dominicirving.com/cccbsg/




Yup, it's pretty funny. There is one for esoteric ramblings too: 

http://sebpearce.com/bullshit/


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## Billy Palmer (Oct 23, 2018)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> Andrew Norman told the story he's telling with his piece. I don't understand what's unhelpful or naive about that!
> 
> Youse all know about this, right? It's brilliant.
> 
> http://www.dominicirving.com/cccbsg/



That's incredible.

Joking aside I love Andrew Norman's music (Play is sooo good) and don't think the notes are ballshit. Will have to listen to some Salonen.


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## CT (Oct 23, 2018)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> Andrew Norman told the story he's telling with his piece. I don't understand what's unhelpful or naive about that!
> 
> Youse all know about this, right? It's brilliant.
> 
> http://www.dominicirving.com/cccbsg/



I remember a friend of mine sharing a collection of *real* program notes and "artist profiles" written at this level of ridiculousness. I felt a little bad laughing at fellow composers, but my god....


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## Nick Batzdorf (Oct 23, 2018)

William Palmer said:


> That's incredible.
> 
> Joking aside I love Andrew Norman's music (Play is sooo good) and don't think the notes are ballshit. Will have to listen to some Salonen.



"Wing on Wing" is a good place to start. It's on iTunes.


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## robgb (Oct 24, 2018)

muk said:


> With good music there is an explanation for every single note, why changing one single note would diminish the piece.


I'd argue that this depends on the listener. One listener might think changing that note diminishes the piece, while another might think it elevates it. Music is a completely and utterly subjective experience.

For me the explanation comes from listening. I don't need to know the math. It won't help me. In fact, it'll only frustrate me and slow me down. And knowing the math will not make me, personally, a better composer. I learn by what I hear. I hear what's being done and I learn from that. Some by careful listening, some simply by osmosis. 

But, clearly, this is a personal thing. Any creative endeavor needs to be approached in a way that works best for each individual. There is no approach that works best for everyone.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Oct 24, 2018)

For me - and I always assumed most musicians - there are two things going on when I listen to music: emotional and intellectual.

Of course you can get carried away with the intellectual part, overanalyzing what goes by in real time to death. But if Salonen says he's using two 6-note chords that cover all 12 tones horizontally, it's not like that ruins it, and it's interesting.


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## mikeh-375 (Oct 25, 2018)

Yep, emotional and intellectual for me. Knowing the 'math' enhances appreciation for me too and I have to say, knowing technique makes for a better composer when it comes to concert work (although I believe that applies across all orchestral genres too). But as Rob says each to their own, some without technique have written wonderful music and some with technique haven't.


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## mikeh-375 (Oct 25, 2018)

gregh said:


> It is late here and I have just got off a plane after a long day as part of this http://performancespace.com.au/events/realtime-in-real-time/
> so this is quick and possibly only slightly coherent. Pretty much all of this has a plausible often empirically supported basis in neuroscience
> .
> 
> ...



This is neat Greg. I am speculating as to how this applies to the creative act too. It seems to me that there may be a conjecture in your last paragraph that could describe inspiration itself in the compositional act. An accumulation of the effort one goes through whilst composing that peaks now and then (if you are lucky) to create resonant moments for the composer that either tie in to their past or are forged anew _because_ of the creative/technical process - a process that brings familiarity with the musical material and makes any so called inspiration a revelation that feels inevitable.
On the other hand, I could be talking a load of Euro cod-intellectual bollocks.


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## gregh (Oct 25, 2018)

mikeh-375 said:


> This is neat Greg. I am speculating as to how this applies to the creative act too. It seems to me that there may be a conjecture in your last paragraph that could describe inspiration itself in the compositional act. An accumulation of the effort one goes through whilst composing that peaks now and then (if you are lucky) to create resonant moments for the composer that either tie in to their past or are forged anew _because_ of the creative/technical process - a process that brings familiarity with the musical material and makes any so called inspiration a revelation that feels inevitable.
> On the other hand, I could be talking a load of Euro cod-intellectual bollocks.



Thanks for reading and your insight. I think so Mike - the artist seeks to generate a resonant moment through their production. In some ways the (popular or even great) artist is the most normal and common of people for what resonates with them also resonates with many others - it generalises widely, perhaps over time and between different cultures as well. What makes the artist exceptional is the ability to dream of and work toward the construction of works that give rise to the resonant moment.


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## mikeh-375 (Oct 25, 2018)

gregh said:


> Thanks for reading and your insight. I think so Mike - the artist seeks to generate a resonant moment through their production. In some ways the (popular or even great) artist is the most normal and common of people for what resonates with them also resonates with many others - it generalises widely, perhaps over time and between different cultures as well. What makes the artist exceptional is the ability to dream of and work toward the construction of works that give rise to the resonant moment.



Even when searching for an initial idea, pre-composition if you like, one seemingly relies on these resonances - the moment when you find something that stirs you up and sets you off on the journey. I understand your point about a commonality between artist and 'public' but what do you think sets some composers off on a road that is far less travelled and unlikely to yield much appreciation?


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## gregh (Oct 25, 2018)

mikeh-375 said:


> Even when searching for an initial idea, pre-composition if you like, one seemingly relies on these resonances - the moment when you find something that stirs you up and sets you off on the journey. I understand your point about a commonality between artist and 'public' but what do you think sets some composers off on a road that is far less travelled and unlikely to yield much appreciation?


maybe it is like a form of addiction - for whatever reason they find something unusual attractive at the early moments of their interest, or at some significant juncture of their life - it gives them the "art buzz" - and they seek out that buzz again and again. Feeling inspired is probably its own reward, and people vary enormously in how other-centred they are


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## bill5 (Nov 1, 2018)

gregh said:


> A trend in Brisbane over the last couple of decades has been the performers discussing the work with the audience before they perform it. I think it a very positive move


I'd say it depends. It can be interesting to hear things about a given piece or album or life's work, for that matter. And hopefully it's because they were asked to, not because they feel it's their "duty."

But if it's a "here's what this piece is and what it means" kind of thing, or especially "this is what or how you should think/feel about it"...that sounds pompous to the point of nausea. Don't tell me what images the piece is supposed to evoke or how I should think or feel about it. That's my job. I think/hope that is rare, however.

And really, even background information or their thoughts about the piece in any way I'd prefer to hear AFTER I've listened to it, and more than once. Sort of a footnote thing, not being "set up to listen to it."


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## bill5 (Nov 1, 2018)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> For me - and I always assumed most musicians - there are two things going on when I listen to music: emotional and intellectual.


I would say with confidence all musicians, with very rare exception at most, and even expand that to basically anyone who knows much of anything about music, esp music theory. 

But I think that's a double-edged sword; the more one knows, I think generally the more "analytical" one tends to get about music, and there is a gain there of appreciating it from that angle, but you also lose in equal amount (assuming those amounts could be equated somehow) some of the purely emotional enjoyment of simply liking it for its own sake. 

In Fowles' novel The Collector, the idea is presented that when you collect/classify (and IMO by extension analyze) something, you're in a way "killing it" (taking some of its "life" away) - it's like having an animal and dissecting it vs just enjoying its presence. I think it's similar with the emotional vs intellectual enjoyment of music. And I quickly add I'm not saying that's bad; it's a trade-off.


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## bill5 (Nov 1, 2018)

douggibson said:


> So now you have elected yourself as the person to tell everyone else what they must do ? Please.


No, he's simply expressing his opinion. People have been known to do that on message boards. 



> Basically your argument is everyone in the audience is stupid, and everyone needs to pander. Everyone should eat fast food and not be forced to think.


um - what?

Sounded like quite the opposite to me. Everyone isn't stupid, and therefore they don't need someone to explain the music.



> Perhaps some people enjoy learning new things, and details about how things are made.


Wow! Dude! Seriously?? No way! Rad!


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## mikeh-375 (Nov 2, 2018)

bill5 said:


> I would say with confidence all musicians, with very rare exception at most, and even expand that to basically anyone who knows much of anything about music, esp music theory.
> 
> But I think that's a double-edged sword; the more one knows, I think generally the more "analytical" one tends to get about music, and there is a gain there of appreciating it from that angle, but you also lose in equal amount (assuming those amounts could be equated somehow) some of the purely emotional enjoyment of simply liking it for its own sake.
> 
> In Fowles' novel The Collector, the idea is presented that when you collect/classify (and IMO by extension analyze) something, you're in a way "killing it" (taking some of its "life" away) - it's like having an animal and dissecting it vs just enjoying its presence. I think it's similar with the emotional vs intellectual enjoyment of music. And I quickly add I'm not saying that's bad; it's a trade-off.



Bill, I have a lot of theoretical training and practise and yet I can and often do, listen to music with absolute abandonment and emotional freefall. Your equation at face value appears to uphold a myth about technique imv - a myth that at its worst, presents technique as cold and in some sense unrelated to emotion when in actual fact technique is there to support and encourage it, in fact, _the_ means to the end.
For me (and others too I suspect), knowledge of technical matters actually enhances the emotional impact, not detract from it, for in the gaining of that knowledge through years of diligence (as one would practise scales etc) one begins to find and understand oneself.
FYI, I always come at discussions like this from a concert music perspective, but it seems self-evident to me at least that some technique could benefit all composers.
edit...jeez I'm repeating myself...getting old....


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## mikeh-375 (Nov 2, 2018)

It does seem a shame that the listener would not be guided by the composer's intent at least, because of a decision to ignore titles or programme notes. I can't see what harm it does because musical experience is surely different for every listener as music only expresses emotion via personal association (see Greg's great post earlier). One doesn't have to think of the planet Venus when the horn heralds those wind triads in contrary motion but one can't escape the beauty and (other-worldly) serenity which also happens to be a personification of Venus. It's just a shame that the reality of the planet sucks as far as humans are concerned , but that's art for you, it can take you (lead you!) to better places. I'm all for titles and happy to be led but do reserve the right to wander off into my own imagination/emotional state whilst listening.


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## bill5 (Nov 2, 2018)

douggibson said:


> Nice one Alpha Dog. Glad to see your web browsing bravado is doing well.


...said the pot. I bet you're a hoot a parties. Not wasting more keystrokes on you.


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## bill5 (Nov 2, 2018)

mikeh-375 said:


> Bill, I have a lot of theoretical training and practise and yet I can and often do, listen to music with absolute abandonment and emotional freefall. Your equation at face value appears to uphold a myth about technique imv - a myth that at its worst, presents technique as cold and in some sense unrelated to emotion when in actual fact technique is there to support and encourage it, in fact, _the_ means to the end.
> For me (and others too I suspect), knowledge of technical matters actually enhances the emotional impact, not detract from it, for in the gaining of that knowledge through years of diligence (as one would practise scales etc) one begins to find and understand oneself.
> FYI, I always come at discussions like this from a concert music perspective, but it seems self-evident to me at least that some technique could benefit all composers.
> edit...jeez I'm repeating myself...getting old....


lol - fair enough. I think you're looking at it from the composer's perspective, where I was addressing the listener's perspective. And certainly I'm not knocking the value (necessity, really) of technique! 

As for old...ugh. New topic pls.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Nov 2, 2018)

bill5 said:


> And I quickly add I'm not saying that's bad; it's a trade-off.



It can be, I guess, but I haven't met a lot of musicians who've lost their enjoyment of music just because they know about it. On the contrary.

Really, it always strikes me as an affectation when people argue that analyzing or judging anything is a problem. I'm unlikely to read that book (for this reason and because the killing analogy is disgusting and ridiculous).

Of course you can take being judgmental and categorizing everything to extremes, but a major part of intelligence is being able to see the big picture - which by definition means correlating information!

That's what we learn to do from an early age. Hopefully our brains get more and more efficient at it throughout our lives!


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## bill5 (Nov 2, 2018)

You completely misunderstood my post, but frankly I half expected such reactions. Never mind


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## Nick Batzdorf (Nov 3, 2018)

Oh. Well, sorry about that!

What I'm reacting to is the idea - whether or not it's your idea here - that we're not supposed to judge things or categorize them, we're just supposed to keep a wide open mind no matter what. My point is that the exact reason we get better at many things as we go along is our experience: we don't need to see everything for the first time!

Obviously it's easy to take that to the "these kids today" extreme too. Or to let your head get in the way of experiencing things.

It's the extremes that make no sense.


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## bill5 (Nov 3, 2018)

It's OK, we probably agree much more than it might seem, it's just that words get in the way. I think it's impossible NOT to judge...well basically everything we experience, in some way or other. But "judging things" gets such a negative connotation, esp in this hypersensitive day and age, when it isn't inherently good or bad. It just is. Which kind of gets back to my point; an "intellectual appreciation" of music (for lack of a better term) is not better or worse than an emotional one. It's simply different. 

As for extremes, IMO extremes (and therefore extremists) rarely if ever make any sense.


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## mikeh-375 (Nov 4, 2018)

Speaking musically, without extremes we'd have nothing to expand or develop into.Nick, perhaps I don't understand your post above, but I'd have thought an open mind is precisely what is required to develop creativity


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## Nick Batzdorf (Nov 4, 2018)

Selectively open?

The truth is that music was blown wide open last century - all art was. So I think our ears are capable of accepting a lot.

It just seems like a lot of people enjoy arguing that there's no good or bad, all opinions are valid, there's no reason to intellectualize... you get the idea.


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## mikeh-375 (Nov 4, 2018)

Yep and agree. More informed = better choices in all walks of life - there _is_ good and bad.


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