What do you prefer in music, originality or tradition?

[kris]

I prefer MUSIC.

[pamosmusic]

Then why didn’t you make that an option?

[joe2758]

What do you prefer in food, salt or pepper?

Two yeas later...

I prefer FOOD

[James W]

I haven't read any of this thread so I'm just wondering how long it took for someone to answer that they prefer being that part of tradition that values originality?

... which at any rate is my answer.

[James W]

But I do think there’s some truth to the dead end created by too much self conscious innovation; and sometimes the language of innovation actually cloaks a new type of uniformity and conservatism. Serialism springs to mind. I can only think your prof hailed from the era of high modernism and saw what an ideological bottleneck that music was (as much as I love Boulez).

Not really. Serialism just expanded music's possibilities to quite a considerable extent. I don't know how or why you think high-modernist music was an 'ideological bottleneck' - its innovations continue to influence composers and creative musicians to this day. And Arnold Whittall's book on Serialism (Cambridge Introduction To) makes a good case for the importance of serialism throughout the twentieth century and into this century - even if a composer ends up rejecting it. It's not so much about rules as it is about parametric thinking and how everything relates to everything else. I don't know how a language of innovation can cloak a new type of uniformity or conservatism - that statement seems oxymoronic to me.

[AllanAllen]

People who can’t play are worried about sounding unoriginal.

Usually at their own self detriment.

[pamosmusic]

My brain says originality but my Spotify history says tradition.

I tend to really like things that use traditional elements in clever (not even smart or brilliant ways).

Julian Lage’s acoustic solo album Worlds Fair comes to mind. Rosenwinkels Deep Song album maybe? Those are absolutely beautiful albums and just add some modern elements to what is essentially pretty traditional music.

Then again, I do love it when people really break out and do something cool. Aaron Parks Invisible Cinema is an all time favorite, for example. I think that’s just more rare than people think. I think we tend to equate “modern” with “original” which isn’t the case.

[Christian Miller]

Not really. Serialism just expanded music's possibilities to quite a considerable extent. I don't know how or why you think high-modernist music was an 'ideological bottleneck' - its innovations continue to influence composers and creative musicians to this day. And Arnold Whittall's book on Serialism (Cambridge Introduction To) makes a good case for the importance of serialism throughout the twentieth century and into this century - even if a composer ends up rejecting it. It's not so much about rules as it is about parametric thinking and how everything relates to everything else. I don't know how a language of innovation can cloak a new type of uniformity or conservatism - that statement seems oxymoronic to me.

Really?

Serialism was innovative maybe 80 years ago. We’ve had serial techniques in movie scores for years.

Every conservative style necessarily starts off as a language of innovation. Romanticism was radical once. The Galant style. What we now call Baroque music. Bebop. Chicago jazz. Bossa Nova (the clue is in the name).

You name it.

The best composers of the post war modernist movement seemed to move beyond serialism fairly quickly - Berio, Stockhausen, Ligeti etc. I think most of them would credit serialism as being essential for forming their later ideas about music, and I can certainly see how it did that, moving things on from the baggage of post romanticism.

Even Steve Reich said something like that actually… the lesser lights clung onto this idea of new music much longer.

There’s a secret history to this too. The 60s changed a lot of stuff. Joshua Rifkin tells the story of being a budding high avant garde composer in the 60s and hearing the Beatles on Ed Sullivan for the first time and thinking ‘everything I’ve been doing is completely out of touch.’ He said that many of his peers felt the same and moved on to other things.

For those that clung on, high modernism became about a rejection of popular culture even as the likes of Stockhausen and Ligeti entered the counter cultural consciousness with their post-serialist music.

You see this expressed mist influential in Adorno.

But if you want to see what I mean by ideological bottleneck you haven’t spoken to many older composition students, whose composition teachers were very much signed up to Boulez’s early revolutionary polemic that serial music was the only viable future for post war music.

Rock music on the other hand quickly adopted eclecticism as its progressive cult.

Serialism like some other popular systems (esp in the US) has the benefit of being teachable and easily assessable. And it no doubt it has a lot of value to the student, divorced from its technocratic mid-century teleology. I know people who studied that stuff and loved it, but I know many - mostly older people - who reacted against its ideological certainties.

In any cases It suited the academy, while outside, the world had moved on, even Boulez. In terms of high modernist music itself that is not limited to serialism of course, but shared an aesthetic with it. an ‘art music’ that seeks to separate itself of from wider culture is surely doomed to die one way or another.

Luckily today’s professors of composition seem much more eclectic. It seems as absurd to reject serial music and what came after as it is to present it as the one true music of the future. It’s just one more option to explore on the road to self expression.

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[AllanAllen]

I think we tend to equate “modern” with “original” which isn’t the case.

So true, I haven’t heard anything original in a long, long time.

Even extreme noise art/music is from the 1970’s like Merzbow, but he’s not even original, Stockhausen was pretty out there in the 50s.

The lofi jazz that was cool a few years ago sounded like some Alec Empire stuff from the 1990s.

Everything has a lineage.

[pamosmusic]

So true, I haven’t heard anything original in a long, long time.

Even extreme noise art/music is from the 1970’s like Merzbow, but he’s not even original, Stockhausen was pretty out there in the 50s.

The lofi jazz that was cool a few years ago sounded like some Alec Empire stuff from the 1990s.

Everything has a lineage.

Hmm. I feel like I have but can’t think of who haha.

Aaron Parks is one who I think was really original, insofar as music ever is. He’d sit there and rattle off all his influences and the stuff he stole just like anyone else would. And theres no Aaron Parks without Keith Jarrett and Brad Mehldau and stuff. But if you situate yourself in 2005 and listen to Invisible Cinema I think it’s pretty original. And just music of the highest order.

Also possible I’m a little off on some timeline stuff there, but I usually put him at the beginning of a little subset of the music that’s pretty vibrant and cool now.

[pamosmusic]

A lot of the projects Ambrose Akinmusire is adjacent to. The Robert Glasper side of things. The Mary Halverson side of things.

Im not sure that stuff is original but its incredibly creative and interesting.

Straight line from Tribe to Glasper, from lots of other interesting free improvising to Halverson. Ambrose himself to the late Coltrane late 60s miles stuff. So I don’t know. Quite sure they don’t care if they’re original either. They’re also all pretty interesting in the ways the incorporate other media — spoken word, visuals, studio tools.

[pamosmusic]

In the vein of that Mingus quote, I think USUALLY the really original and creative ones often are just the only ones to think of a thing that turns out to have been such an organic next step in the tradition that it doesn’t seem that original in retrospect. So it’s hard to see how original they were, or maybe we know intuitively that they were original but have a hard time pinning down why.

The number of genuine epoch changers, you can probably count on one hand. But then that’s probably as many as you need

[AllanAllen]

So this came out in 2001, which is more techno, still the lineage of this to Aaron Parks

To JD and Domi Beck.

I can see it.

I like that Aaron Parks track, I’m not saying is bad, I’m saying originality is overrated.

[Christian Miller]

So true, I haven’t heard anything original in a long, long time.

Even extreme noise art/music is from the 1970’s like Merzbow, but he’s not even original, Stockhausen was pretty out there in the 50s.

The lofi jazz that was cool a few years ago sounded like some Alec Empire stuff from the 1990s.

Everything has a lineage.

I think we exist in a space less of ‘progress’ and more of defining an individuality.

I mean after Cage anything is possible really. Where do we locate ourselves in this big room?

The idea of progress in music I tend to associate much more with the mid 19th century culture wars between the Progressives (Wagner, Liszt, Schumann) and the Conservatives (Brahms.) This is a German thing maybe (because the Germans were so preeminent in music at that time) but I think it’s primarily a 19th century thing. I might be wrong but I’m not sure it occurred to many to frame music in this way before.

And this Wagnerian conception runs through the entire modernist project right through until the Beatles made it look ridiculous and post modernism took over (even jazz didn’t quite manage it, although attempts were made to bring jazz into the modernist fold - see Third Stream etc.)

So I think it’s an idea that was a lot to do with the Industrial Revolution. You can see similar ideas of teleology - at least in the sense we are evolving with purpose - in the Liberal Whig History that underpins both modern social democratic liberalism and centre right neoliberalism or the writings of Marx. And for that matter the tech millennialist cult. It’s amazing how sticky it is. So it’s no surprise it shows up in music.

On the other hand despite my skepticism of any of those types of narratives I would hope the alternative is not a blind and wilful worship of tradition of its own sake. That seems, kinda dumb.

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[Peter C]

How about mindblowing originality achieved by completely deconstructing and recomposing tradition?. I believe I read that this piece is based on Gillespie’s Anthropology and thanks again to James W here, by the way.

[Christian Miller]

Anyway, aside from all of that stuff, I feel strongly the right path in music is always the one that flows. I do feel people get themselves into trouble sometimes by trying to be new.

You cannot force yourself into originality. OTOH an individual voice will emerge. I think you have to trust your instincts. And learning music is never a bad thing.

It is not something I spend a huge amount of time worrying about tbh.

[ragman1]

What do you prefer in music, originality or tradition?


I don't quite understand this. You can play traditional tunes with originality and modern tunes in a traditional way. I'm assuming traditional means in a style belonging to the 40's or something like that, i.e. bebop. Or even earlier.

But, in a proper answer to the question, it depends entirely on the delivery. Some sound better one way, others another way, and others a sort of combination of a lot of things. But even that's a matter of personal taste.

Round Midnight is quite an interesting tune. It was written in the early 40's but it doesn't really sound like bebop, more like a melodic ballad. So what do you do?

[AllanAllen]

How about mindblowing originality achieved by completely deconstructing and recomposing tradition?. I believe I read that this piece is based on Gillespie’s Anthropology and thanks again to James W here, by the way.

Deerhoof.

[ragman1]

Singing it like traditional Indian music isn't terribly original :-)

Actually, I'm not sure what 'original' really means...

[James W]

Really?

Serialism was innovative maybe 80 years ago. We’ve had serial techniques in movie scores for years.

It developed quite a lot in those 80 years (as well as prior to that). Just check out Stockhausen's oeuvre.

The best composers of the modernist movement seemed to move beyond serialism fairly quickly. I think most of them would credit a serialism as being useful for forming their later ideas about music. Even Steve Reich said something like that actually… the lesser lights clung onto this idea of new music much longer.

Wow, strongly disagree with what you write here. Stockhausen and Boulez never relinquished serial thought even while their styles kept on developing.

There’s a secret history to this too. The 60s changed a lot of stuff. Joshua Rifkin tells the story of being a budding high avant garde composer in the 60s and hearing the Beatles on Ed Sullivan for the first time and thinking ‘everything I’ve been doing is completely out of touch.’ He said that many of his peers felt the same and moved on to other things.

And then there were some like Berio who appreciated the Beatles but continued along his compositional path.

For those that clung on, high modernism became about a rejection of popular culture even as the likes of Stockhausen and Ligeti entered the counter cultural consciousness with their post-serialist music.

Not sure where you got this idea from. Was or is high modernism any more about a rejection of popular culture than any other kind of 'art' or 'classical' music that were or are contemporary to it? Also not sure where you've got the idea of 'post-serialist' music - Ligeti as far as I can remember actually rejected serialism quite quickly, whereas Stockhausen was a serialist to the end.

But if you want to see what I mean by ideological bottleneck you haven’t spoken to many older composition students, whose composition teachers were very much signed up to Boulez’s early revolutionary polemic that serial music was the only viable future for post war music.

You got any proof of this? I mean, I haven't spoken to many older composition students - have you? How old are we talking about here? Sounds a bit like a myth - about all these profs signed up to Boulez's early polemic.

Serialism like some other popular systems (esp in the US) has the benefit of being teachable and easily assessable. And it no doubt it has a lot of value to the student, divorced from its technocratic mid-century teleology. I know people who studied that stuff and loved it, but I know many who reacted against its ideological certainties.

In any cases It suited the academy, while outside, the world had moved on, even Boulez. In terms of high modernist music itself that is not limited to serialism of course, but shared an aesthetic with it. an ‘art music’ that seeks to separate itself of from wider culture is surely doomed to die one way or another.

Luckily today’s professors of composition seem much more eclectic. It seems as absurd to reject serial music and what came after as it is to present it as the one true music of the future. It’s just one more option to explore on the road to self expression.

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Agree with your last paragraph here. But how does serial music seek to separate itself from wider culture? And assuming that that is what it does, I don't think your point about it being doomed to die is true. It's nonsense in fact. Looking at the history of western music these things come and go - e.g. the ridiculously complex ars subtillior music from the latter half of the 14th century gave way to the predominantly triadic music of the early Renaissance. Then in late Renaissance there were those such as Gesualdo and Lassus who pushed the modal system into outré chromatic terrain. Then there is late Beethoven string quartets, Romanticism etc. etc. Point is, none of this music has died. Sure things change, but there is a lot of overlap. I'm not denying there was reaction against serialism and modernist music, but this has occurred alongside it, because it's still around.

[frabarmus]

Both. What's now "traditional" was once "original".

[frabarmus]

You cannot choose both, and your explanations of how you have/want both are not accepted. It's a tough world.

Just now have I noticed the "rules of the game"... well, too late. Forget what I said above... have fun! :-)

[Christian Miller]

It developed quite a lot in those 80 years (as well as prior to that). Just check out Stockhausen's oeuvre.





Wow, strongly disagree with what you write here. Stockhausen and Boulez never relinquished serial thought even while their styles kept on developing.



And then there were some like Berio who appreciated the Beatles but continued along his compositional path.




Not sure where you got this idea from. Was or is high modernism any more about a rejection of popular culture than any other kind of 'art' or 'classical' music that were or are contemporary to it? Also not sure where you've got the idea of 'post-serialist' music - Ligeti as far as I can remember actually rejected serialism quite quickly, whereas Stockhausen was a serialist to the end.





You got any proof of this? I mean, I haven't spoken to many older composition students - have you? How old are we talking about here? Sounds a bit like a myth - about all these profs signed up to Boulez's early polemic.




Agree with your last paragraph here. But how does serial music seek to separate itself from wider culture? And assuming that that is what it does, I don't think your point about it being doomed to die is true. It's nonsense in fact. Looking at the history of western music these things come and go - e.g. the ridiculously complex ars subtillior music from the latter half of the 14th century gave way to the predominantly triadic music of the early Renaissance. Then in late Renaissance there were those such as Gesualdo and Lassus who pushed the modal system into outré chromatic terrain. Then there is late Beethoven string quartets, Romanticism etc. etc. Point is, none of this music has died. Sure things change, but there is a lot of overlap. I'm not denying there was reaction against serialism and modernist music, but this has occurred alongside it, because it's still around.

Part quoting stuff on Tapatalk is a pain in the behind so I’ll just block quote if you don’t mind.

All those composers became much more eclectic after their early serial music. It didn’t make them ‘renounce serialism’ or whatever, but it did show a widening of musical concerns. As I say serialism was a jumping off point. And while a piece like Ligeti’s lux aeterna or whatever might not be considered serial (its organisational process is essentially a canon iirc) I can’t imagine it having been written without the influence of serial music. He was very often a procedural composer which is something he shares with both Reich and Boulez. And Karnatic music for that matter.

Back when I used to listen a lot to this stuff, all these composers were still alive. I saw Boulez couch conductors in Schoenberg. He was great!

So I don’t know that serialism can be said to be inherently an innovative tradition.l, any more than any other technique one might use to construct music. It’s something people do at music college. Maybe it has the illusion of innovation based on the fact that it has been resistance to widespread popularity, which adherents sometimes used as a badge of honour. Which is kind of sad.

But modernism is a founded on a set of very unexamined set of presuppositions about the world. It is the image of reason, not reason.

I find it endearing mostly. I had quite a free wheeling relationship with it all. But I don’t think you can discount the lived experiences of those who experienced dogmatic serialist composition teachers and didn’t get on with it, and there was plenty of those. Some on here. Some rebelled and made their own new conventions.

Anyway all ancient history now. Mods and rockers. Old tribalisms die away…

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[Bobby Timmons]

OP isn't active so we can do what we want.

If I had to choose 1, I would choose tradition.

My actual preferred approach is traditional with originality like some of the pianists at Mez. When it's totally mod I hate it, when it's totally traditional I think it's great, but when they're grounded in tradition but shred it with originality I think it's totally awesome.

[Christian Miller]

I had a collection of essays by ‘contemporary composers’ and it strikes me years later that so many of these essays are attempts at self validation about following this or that course of artistic expression be it serialism, tonality, minimalism etc etc. It’s a bit like being stuck at a party with someone who insists on telling you not only what their favourite Radiohead record is but why using FACTS and LOGIC.

The psychology of it is obvious - there was lot bound up with being the future of music. Power, kudos, influence. Of course, now we live in a time where it seems risible that the future of music might be decided by learned debates of this type seems quaint.

And of course the history of music happened while the art composers were making other plans. That’s what I think was so devastating about that Ed Sullivan Beatles moment. No longer could there said to be a well defined art music in isolation to popular music. It’s hard to imagine a world like that for someone like myself who grew up in the cultural detritus of the 1960s.

Progress is often unexpected.


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