The official mad-at-theory thread

[Jimmy Smith]

You do realise this very same reactionary stance has been used to decry innovative music throughout history?

I like the music, however you can't debunk that it's noise music. That is the purpose of it - to follow less rules and result with noise.

[James W]

I like the music, however you can't debunk that it's noise music. That is the purpose of it - to follow less rules and result with noise.

I would question the value of using the term 'noise' to describe any music that departs from 'rules'. I mean, is Schoenberg's free atonal era music 'noisier' than his serial works?

[Chris236]

Feel free to quote and point out where I'm incorrect with my logic based on what you said. Otherwise, I'll keep pointing out how your opinions are incorrect as long as you continue with them.

already done in the posts in the other thread that you quoted me from. Go back and read if you wish to learn more. If you wish to stifle my ‘opinions’ good luck with that .

if you don’t agree, no problem, stop reading my posts or furthermore replying to my replies to other people that you obviously don’t understand. It’s silly.

Good luck with your music!

Chris

[Jimmy Smith]

Ok, so you won't clarify but I'm wrong by default. And I'm the childish one. Lol!

[Chris236]

Ok, so you won't clarify but I'm wrong by default. And I'm the childish one. Lol!

as mentioned, the things you brought up were already covered in the other thread. I don’t wish to do it twice. Feel free to read my posts in the other thread. Enjoy!

[Jimmy Smith]

I'm fine with the argument having ended.

[Chris236]

I'm fine with the argument having ended.

you are mistaken, if you believe I was arguing with anyone. It would be pointless. But maybe what Ive posted will help a few.

[Jimmy Smith]

Ok guy. I don't think I've encountered anyone trying to establish superiority for so long while offering no content what so ever. And false info usually doesn't help people.

[Chris236]

Ok guy. I don't think I've encountered anyone trying to establish superiority for so long while offering no content what so ever.

sounds like you still haven’t read any of my posts. OK you win. – fire away and I’m happy to answer your questions.

[Jimmy Smith]

I read your posts. Which ones are you referring to? If there's a disagreement, it's your duty to explain yourself adequately, not attempt to put the other person down because they didn't follow your passive aggressive stream of logic lol. Grow up.

[Chris236]

I read your posts. Which ones are you referring to? If there's a disagreement, it's your duty to explain yourself adequately, not attempt to put the other person down because they didn't follow your passive aggressive stream of logic lol. Grow up.

so far you are the one who seems aggressive.

I’m offering to answer your questions right now. Shoot. Let’s talk about it. Feel free to private message me if you’re more comfortable with that. I’m open for you.

Chris

[Jimmy Smith]

I don't need to keep arguing if you don't. But I can paste your original post that started our disagreement.

[Chris236]

I don't need to keep arguing if you don't. But I can paste your original post that started our disagreement.

whatever it was, I missed it so please do.

[Jimmy Smith]

It was this.

You have to do both - grasp the reality of the music, and follow some theoretical rules. They're not at odds with each other. Keep the form, play in time, outline the changes, etc. While yes, some are guidelines rather than unbreakable rules.

i’d argue that if you feel pressure to follow any “Rules“ there’s a weakness there that needs to be addressed or at least an unresolved question you need to answer for yourself.

Here you said following rules means you have inadequacy with your musicality, which isn't true. I'm studying with Tony Monaco, a top pro. He shows me how pro level playing is getting all the fundamentals together, playing the stuff correctly, then adding musicality and creativity. The 2 aren't at odds with each other, they're both essential.

[pamosmusic]

I would question the value of using the term 'noise' to describe any music that departs from 'rules'. I mean, is Schoenberg's free atonal era music 'noisier' than his serial works?

This seems like a more interesting conversation so I’m going to have this one.

Ive always taken the free jazz thing to be playing with other aspects of music other than pitch as such. Line shape, dynamics, timbre, tempo, raw consonance and dissonance. All the other elements that can hold music together. For what it’s worth, I was never a fan until I could see it live.

EDIT: by which I mean that all the rules tend to be dependent on other rules and things. So it’s interesting to see how far you can get from the musical rules and have it still hang together.

[Chris236]

It was this.

Here you said following rules means you have inadequacy with your musicality, which isn't true. I'm studying with Tony Monaco, a top pro. He shows me how pro level playing is getting all the fundamentals together, playing the stuff correctly, then adding musicality and creativity. The 2 aren't at odds with each other, they're both essential.

Jimmy – give me a little bit to finish up some other things and I’m happy to talk with you about all this. I actually enjoy it.

[James W]

This seems like a more interesting conversation so I’m going to have this one.

Ive always taken the free jazz thing to be playing with other aspects of music other than pitch as such. Line shape, dynamics, timbre, tempo, raw consonance and dissonance. All the other elements that can hold music together. For what it’s worth, I was never a fan until I could see it live.

Depends on what kind of free jazz. For me, Coltrane's Interstellar Space definitely plays with pitch as a definite organising principle, as well as other aspects. And for what it's worth (definitely not much) although I was very intrigued when I first bought and heard that album, it wasn't until a few months later when I listened to it while on one of my first MDMA trips that I became a fan... and then some! Words fail me, but let's just say there was definite synergy. But it's been the case for a good few years now that I cannot partake of that form of altered consciousness...

[pamosmusic]

Well that’s a good point too. Ornette also had his own organization of pitch too.

[pamosmusic]

Maybe it’s not playing with aspects other than pitch … maybe we’re talking about aspects other than harmony. Maybe that’s a better descriptor

[Christian Miller]

I would question the value of using the term 'noise' to describe any music that departs from 'rules'. I mean, is Schoenberg's free atonal era music 'noisier' than his serial works?

Normally when people say stuff like that I assume they are musically incurious.

Serialism is a funny one because unlike tonality or systems music the system is not obvious to the ear. Well unless you happen to have a highly trained ear for the music, or the composer has made an effort to make the serial structure very simple and obvious to the listener (there are some examples of this aren’t there? I forget who by.)

In general I tend to perceive music as varied repetition. The amount of variation and repetition varies and is a matter of taste. Reich obviously uses less variation and more repetition than Brahms, say. Even within idioms - as a singer it always seemed Handel used more unvaried patterns and sequences than Bach who would make subtle variations in patterns as a matter of course quite often after a single repetition - which made Bach’s music much harder or learn. (It was also much harder to sing but that’s another story… )

OTOH I would say that even tonal era Shoenberg to be elusive because things like Verkarte Nacht have a continuous sense of developing exposition. It takes a lot of concentration to keep track, and I do find the Brahmsian motivic symphonists like, well, Brahms, Sibelius and Elgar often quite challenging for that reason; I find Stravinsky and Bartok’s music much easier and more familiar culturally (they’ve been ripped off for a thousand film scores). Even orchestral Boulez as I don’t feel he expects me to keep track of themes or motives and I can just enjoy colour and movement.

Early Schoenberg is a step up from the Brahmsians in complexity…

So some of the difficulty of hearing the organisation was there from day one. The ‘atonality’ is only part of it.

[Chris236]

It was this.

Here you said following rules means you have inadequacy with your musicality, which isn't true. I'm studying with Tony Monaco, a top pro. He shows me how pro level playing is getting all the fundamentals together, playing the stuff correctly, then adding musicality and creativity. The 2 aren't at odds with each other, they're both essential.

Jimmy, you’re definitely misunderstanding me. What that meant is that if you haven’t internalized something to the point where you don’t have to think about it, you’ve got work to do. And we all do, at something, perpetually….that’s one of the cool things about music. Most of what is being discussed in that other thread has to do with what is natural versus learned when it comes to har-melodic relationships. I guess that’s a fancy way of saying chord scales. My experience both with myself (as a pro for almost 3 decades) and 1000’s of students is that there’s a tangible nature to it. It’s always obvious to me who’s connected with that and who hasn’t. I think most people have it within them, but they just get too caught up in the mechanics of the instrument and the pressure of what they believe they should be doing to get sensitive to the sounds, which, to many of us have a gravity and life of their own. That’s an easy thing to do and I’m sure something that most all of us do sometimes as well. One of my mantras to students struggling to play on changes is play less listen more! Once you can hear where to go, it’s easy to play as much or as little as you like.

Now, does this mean that you do not need to work on the major scale, melodic minor scale, harmonic minor scale, diminished scale, whole tone scale, tertian and intervalic structures of all sorts….Absolutely not. The more proficient you are on your instrument and the deeper those physical pathways are, the more likely you are to get to the “right” places by ear(without thought). But I personally believe the only valuable music is the stuff that’s born FROM listening without forcing any technical details. And many great players have arisen from not much more as a matter of fact. Hope this clears it up for you.

C

[Chris236]

If there’s any weird words in there my apologies. Dictation from my phone.

[Jimmy Smith]

Yes, I agree with everything. The only thing where my perspective differs is where you said:

One of my mantras to students struggling to play on changes is play less listen more! Once you can hear where to go, it’s easy to play as much or as little as you like.

I don't think there's ever a disadvantage to getting the fundamentals down more because that only allows your musicality to show more.

Although, yes the musicality is the end goal. Some play very musically with few fundamentals. Many play very musically with lots of fundamentals. To me it only helps.

[James W]

Normally when people say stuff like that I assume they are musically incurious.

Agreed.

Serialism is a funny one because unlike tonality or systems music the system is not obvious to the ear. Well unless you happen to have a highly trained ear for the music, or the composer has made an effort to make the serial structure very simple and obvious to the listener (there are some examples of this aren’t there? I forget who by.)

I have to disagree here. I don't think you need to have highly trained ears to intuit the various forms and structures in the wide variety of pieces that come under the umbrella of serialism. Just like tonal music of course, learning theory and ear-training will enable you articulate what you hear better than you would have done otherwise.

In general I tend to perceive music as varied repetition. The amount of variation and repetition varies and is a matter of taste. Reich obviously uses less variation and more repetition than Brahms, say. Even within idioms - as a singer it always seemed Handel used more unvaried patterns and sequences than Bach who would make subtle variations in patterns as a matter of course quite often after a single repetition - which made Bach’s music much harder or learn. (It was also much harder to sing but that’s another story… )

OTOH I would say that even tonal era Shoenberg to be elusive because things like Verkarte Nacht have a continuous sense of developing exposition. It takes a lot of concentration to keep track, and I do find the Brahmsian motivic symphonists like, well, Brahms, Sibelius and Elgar often quite challenging for that reason; I find Stravinsky and Bartok’s music much easier and more familiar culturally (they’ve been ripped off for a thousand film scores). Even orchestral Boulez as I don’t feel he expects me to keep track of themes or motives and I can just enjoy colour and movement.

Early Schoenberg is a step up from the Brahmsians in complexity…

So some of the difficulty of hearing the organisation was there from day one. The ‘atonality’ is only part of it.

I see what you're saying, regarding the difference between composers like Stravinsky and Bartok, and Schoenberg and those symphonists. TBH I'm not a great fan of quite a few of Schoenberg's serial works, they seem a bit rhythmically and formally staid, like his technique - serialism - was new, but in certain respects he's keen to hearken back to older forms, instead of seeing the full implications of the technique. But I quite enjoy getting lost and swept up in the pre-serial works of Schoenberg. Take the Five Orchestral Pieces for example, I don't think they're that tricky or dense, and he does use some older techniques like canon, but IMO there is lots of colour and deep expression. And the first two string quartets are amazing, especially the second where in the final movement the words 'I feel the air from another planet' are sung, as the piece finally abandons tonality, which it had been threatening to do in the previous movements.

[Christian Miller]

Agreed.



I have to disagree here. I don't think you need to have highly trained ears to intuit the various forms and structures in the wide variety of pieces that come under the umbrella of serialism. Just like tonal music of course, learning theory and ear-training will enable you articulate what you hear better than you would have done otherwise.

I’m not talking about tonality or dissonance - I’m really talking about form. Imo the great divider between accessible and less accessible music at least for my generation is repetition. Most serial works are far to the variation side of the spectrum and in general avoid repetition. I actually think this is more important than harmony. To go from the strophic song or riff to the c19 symphony is also a cultural leap. The shared musical culture that supported these works and allowed them to communicate is in decline. I had to learn to hear Brahms for instance. Schoenberg is an extreme development of that culture.

I think it is possible you underestimate your own level of specialist aural acuity. My appreciation of non tonal music is pretty unsophisticated. I listen to it and either I like the sounds or I don’t. And that’s about it.

I don’t doubt that if I spent some time with serial technique my appreciation for this works would increase. Similarly now when I listen to a c18 work I’m hearing Schemata and so on. It’s very obvious.

OTOH as a more experienced and widely listened musician I find atonal classical works less extreme than I used to. But it doesn’t mean I understand them in the way I now do a Mozart symphony.

I see what you're saying, regarding the difference between composers like Stravinsky and Bartok, and Schoenberg and those symphonists. TBH I'm not a great fan of quite a few of Schoenberg's serial works, they seem a bit rhythmically and formally staid, like his technique - serialism - was new, but in certain respects he's keen to hearken back to older forms, instead of seeing the full implications of the technique. But I quite enjoy getting lost and swept up in the pre-serial works of Schoenberg. Take the Five Orchestral Pieces for example, I don't think they're that tricky or dense, and he does use some older techniques like canon, but IMO there is lots of colour and deep expression. And the first two string quartets are amazing, especially the second where in the final movement the words 'I feel the air from another planet' are sung, as the piece finally abandons tonality, which it had been threatening to do in the previous movements.

everyone goes cold on the Schoenberg twelve tone stuff. It’s all about Webern…

Iirc Schoenberg regarded his free atonal works as a dead end because he had to anchor the extended works to texts rather than the brahmsian motivic approach he was obsessed with. Even in a blinking string quartet. Interestingly it’s that reliance on texts and mood which makes them effective… and his short free tonal pieces are easier to get into too.

I find his tonal music harder to get tbh. Probably helps if you were from that culture…