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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted November 08, 2015 10:49 PM |
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artu said:
I guess, that's because while you're receiving it, music is the most abstract among all arts.
This is untrue. How abstract would look War and Peace to someone who read only comics? What are the chances he goes until the end?
What about one who read regularly russian literature and is accustomed to russian patronymics and unique universe?
That goes with music as well. You maybe think Bach is abstract, but how many entire works of Bach you listened and how many Bach scores you studied personally? Then once you are able to memorize, understand and reproduce thousands of hours of Bach music, would your approach for all music styles still remain so superficial? I guess not.
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted November 08, 2015 11:03 PM |
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Edited by artu at 23:15, 08 Nov 2015.
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I am talking about abstract, not alien. Let's say you are a tribe member from some obscure Amazon jungle zone, you know nothing about 19th century Russia or even something remotely similar, they translate Tolstoy to you, you will probably perceive and feel nothing. Now, let's say, this time, they make you listen to Tchaikovsky, if you're completely alien to classical music forms, you probably won't perceive much either. But there is still a very crucial nuance about how it can make you feel.
Visual arts, especially if figurative, are in the other end of this spectrum, they can captivate people immediately no matter what their cognitive background is.
Edit:
Your comment gave me the impression you understand something different from the word abstract. I checked out the dictionary for other meanings of it, number 4 is this:
4.
difficult to understand; abstruse
What I mean, however, is this:
1.
thought of apart from concrete realities, specific objects, or actual instances
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Are you pretty? This is my occasion. - Ghost
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Galaad
Hero of Order
Li mort as morz, li vif as vis
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posted November 09, 2015 12:31 AM |
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Edited by Galaad at 01:47, 09 Nov 2015.
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Salamandre said:
I don't know, is not about being into or not, is about attitude vs artistic forms identities and connections.
Well in reality the metal genre has a huge culture with artistic forms identities etc and does require musical skill to create. It has legions of sub-genres and different codes. It is most of the times overly saturated with things like distorsion, energetic drives, and for more extreme-metal you get insane tempi where drumming becomes a sport, growls (using stomach tech) and so on. You say you don't hear what he shouts sings, while in that crowd you see headbanguing some may know the lyrics by heart while metalists in general can provoke themselves to death argue about their tastes about different growlers singers and even have a musical discussion about. Of course it's about being into or not.
Just as one would need to tune up his ear with ie classical music or jazz, metal also requires education, yet from a different culture. In my experience classical music is the most intuitive to catch and interpret, as its focus (beyond technique, which we know exists only to serve) is directly connected to sensitivity, while metal on the other hand, is pure energy first and foremost, more on the adrenaline road of hell rather than ascending to the high skies, although both being different ways letting you eventually explore sides of your inner self, but I believe as any other kind of music reaching you would do.
Of course is perfectly understandable to not like it.
artu said:
The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1 - Prelude #1 In C, BWV 846
That's a rather romantic take, though when it comes to Bach I'm Richter for life.
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted November 09, 2015 10:30 AM |
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artu said:
Let's say you are a tribe member from some obscure Amazon jungle zone
You are way too optimist. Actually Tolstoy or Tchaikovsky are abstract things for 90% of people from civilized countries.
artu said:
Visual arts, especially if figurative, are in the other end of this spectrum, they can captivate people immediately no matter what their cognitive background is.
That's because they use structural elements from our practical life, thus easy recognizable. This is why all the recurrent "styles" described in next post by Galaad need so many fancy effects to captivate: exaggerated movements, stultifying lights, obtrusive drums, dislocated fans and other show elements. If you -as experiment- remove those easy recognizable effects which only simulate the life rhythm and energy, all you will find in the end is an extremely simplistic and childish melody, if any. And the harmony, it is simply inexistent.
I am not talking here about the big picture of musical styles, but about all the popular little branches which have been nurtured by the formers -rap, metal, whatever screams louder. Where there is no quality melody or harmony, there is no music.
This is like saying chewing gum is food. It is not, yet you chew it all the day long.
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted November 09, 2015 12:28 PM |
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Edited by artu at 14:34, 09 Nov 2015.
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@Galaad
Thanks, it's a great version indeed.
Salamandre said:
You are way too optimist. Actually Tolstoy or Tchaikovsky are abstract things for 90% of people from civilized countries.
Well, I may be a little optimistic but you are way too pessimistic, they use the Nutcracker (Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy, mostly) in even cartoons these days. The majority may not be significantly into classical music but their ears are not completely alien to it, they give an emotional response to it when they hear it, especially to well-known stuff like 7th symphony of Beethoven or Four Seasons by Vivaldi etc. Some of these are so popular, they have rock or pop versions (which I usually dislike).
But anyway, my example and my first comment in the beginning was not to focus on the difference between an educated ear and an uneducated one. (Of course, there is a difference.) The differences I was focusing on was among to see, read and hear something (that's why I emphasized "while we are receiving it") and music, and especially music without lyrics, I think, is the most abstract form of arts. Literature, as it almost always uses imagery of actual things from life even in fantasy or sci-fi, is the most concrete and that's why it can date much faster than music, the world of Shakespeare is very far to us now, with its customs, traditions, etiquette etc, yes, his touch on the human psyche and its motivations, emotions, fears is universal but for details in his plays we apply to foot notes for the modern reader. How can someone read Caesar with a full grasp, if they have no idea what Rome was? Music on the other hand do not carry these problems, you can listen to 16th century music and get into it much easier.
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Zenofex
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Kreegan-atheist
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posted November 09, 2015 12:55 PM |
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artu said:
Music on the other hand do not carry these problems, you can listen to 16th century music and get into it much easier.
I'd say yes and no. Music also carries the spirit of its time like any other cultural product. It would be too far fetched to say that 16th century could produce heavy metal even if they had electric guitars. Today what is usually referred to as "classical music" is just that - classical, something that relates to times to a past epoch of major significance but still dead and gone in many regards. There are aspects of music which are immortal and will mean something to someone even after a million years but there are also such that can be felt only if you have lived during the times which originated them. It's directly related to the human nature ("soul", if you like) - some parts of it never change, others come and go.
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted November 09, 2015 01:24 PM |
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Zenofex said:
There are aspects of music which are immortal and will mean something to someone even after a million years but there are also such that can be felt only if you have lived during the times which originated them.
Well, maybe so, especially when it comes to folk/popular, it must be something else to dance to a tarantella on your wedding as a peasant in medieval times, listen to Jimi Hendrix as a teen in Woodstock back in 1968 or dance to the new, crazy jazz in a 1920's speakeasy. But I think that aspect of it becomes less end less significant when we're talking about music that it is considered "high art" and composed as music for music's sake. Yes, there is still that, we wont know the feeling of dancing to a brand new waltz, in a palace in 18th century as the emperor's guests. We cant receive Bach's church music like a 17th century Christian etc, but these are much less significant things when you compare it with the historicity of literature.
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Are you pretty? This is my occasion. - Ghost
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Galaad
Hero of Order
Li mort as morz, li vif as vis
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posted November 09, 2015 01:48 PM |
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Salamandre said:
Where there is no quality melody or harmony, there is no music.
I think there is music as soon as there is rhythm. What is a melody if not a succession of notes played in a particular rhythm.
An example I like to take is the opening theme of Beethoven's 5th symphony, change the harmony and even intervals yet keep exact same rhythm, anyone familiar will instantly recognize it, heck you can even hear it by knocking the rhythmic figure alone on the table.
Sometimes I think rhythm is being underrated in classical and scholarly music, as it is basically an indication on the partition, there is much more going on, while in other popular music genres it can even take the upside with different time feels and grooves along specific and precise rhythmical placements, funk music or big bands from the swing era sounds like a screaming example of intense body language in music, even though the harmony and melody can remain very basic, it just makes people dance and gives happiness or simply generates emotion to many, the fact it isn't necessarily intense on the harmony or melody does not mean there is no music.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted November 09, 2015 02:01 PM |
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I think, that the discussion is based on a couple of not working assumption, because in the end it makes no sense to reduce "music" in general to something specific.
Music is an artistic expression that has a lot to do with rhythm and body movements - know as "dancing" (and it makes no sense to make a quality difference here between different forms of dancing like some ballet or a "rain dance" or whatever).
In the end it amounts to whether an artistic expression is reaching to you or not - music is in the ear of the listener, just as beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
If you have the time, listen to some of the different versions of "Nothing else matters" (by Metallica, originally) - it's a ballad, pretty nice to hear, but when played by Metallica it's still METAL, obvious when it comes to a close with a shortish but precise electric guitar solo. However, they did play and record the song with a full orchestra as well.
Then there is the Lucie Silvas version - also heavily orchestrated. Different vocals, obviously, all in all a more monumental ballad with some force based on heavy drums, but with a very quiet and modest reprise.
You may then have a go at Gabriella Quevedo's purely instrumental version played with one classic guitar - a cute piece of expert guitar work, nicely done, transmitting something of the dynamics between melody and accompanying music. I think that one will teach you, thanks to Tomi Paldanius' great arrangement and her pure playing what great music and harmonies the song is composed of.
And while there are probably a thousand versions out there you may want to finish with Shakira's version, and no matter which one of her versions you watch and listen, at youtube you will see an enormous amount of dislikes (one vid has something like 5000 likes and over 22.000 dislikes), but that just goes to show how subjective things are, because Shakira transforms it into a Flamenco style song, and while I'm no fan of her or something, I really DO like the arrangement because it exudes a monstrous amount of a different kind of power (via the rhythm) that has nothing to do with "metal" or anything, but it's still at least as powerful - without touching the foundations of the song.
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orzie
Responsible
Supreme Hero
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posted November 09, 2015 06:17 PM |
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Quote:
Where there is no quality melody or harmony, there is no music.
Again a childish maximalism which I really didn't expect from such a mature and well-respected person like yourself, Salamandre. Music has existed long before the definition of melody and harmony. The first musical instrument is drums, not the piano or violin, regardless if you like it or not.
Music is not just notes written down on a paper. It is sound with certain characteristics. The type of musical instrument involved also matters a lot, because of specific frequency characteristics of each instrument.
If a melody sounds "simplistic" or "childish", it may very well work for many people. One of the keys for the popularity of music is its simplicity. So that, logically, people are in need for such melodies, they receive positive emotions from it and they may very well don't care about snobs who spend half of their life to understand "high-quality" music and start getting pleasure via listening to it.
I don't even mention dodecaphony. Classic, eh? But it's less music than any other kind of. It's pure mathematics, built without any involvement of a human ear.
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted November 09, 2015 06:40 PM |
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So calling names just because someone's opinion is that your band is not good? This is music discussions thread, you put it inside, what you expect me to say? Will you teach me how should one listen to music? I was already teaching music languages when you weren't born yet, literally. 
If you put it in "what you listen to", I would have no objection, or make a thread: my band. Again, I will no comment. To each one his hobby, I make wog mods for example.
I agree that music definition involves more than rhythm and sound. It involves a combination of both, but not any combination, a working combination, which passes the test of any educated ear, not retarded fans only! Which has as result that I am able to hear and enjoy contrasts, modulations, melody curve, silence when is need, all those things which make real life expressible through sound combinations.
Making same constant noise during 5 minutes isn't that.
I am not complaining about the style you claim to be part of, but about the execution. The metalica examples people post previously are clearly identifiable, that I love them or not isn't important. But I can at least make an idea about what I hear.
Also, when an amateur, don't try to look more advanced you are, by saying dodecaphonism is pure mathematics and has nothing to do with ear. Now you are trying to put feet into very professional areas, where a specialist will eat you alive for such ignorant claims. 
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Era II mods and utilities
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orzie
Responsible
Supreme Hero
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posted November 09, 2015 07:18 PM |
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Edited by orzie at 19:46, 09 Nov 2015.
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Quote:
So calling names just because someone's opinion is that your band is not good?
I think you should really read the quoted text sometimes before answering. My pretention concerned your authoritary re-definition of what is music. I don't care if you like my band or not, the discussion has gone way far from it.
Quote:
Also, when an amateur, don't try to look more advanced you are, by saying dodecaphonism is pure mathematics and has nothing to do with ear. Now you are trying to put feet into very professional areas, where a specialist will eat you alive for such ignorant claims.
I admit I don't have enough musical education, but some examples of mr. Schoenberg's music are much less musical to my ear than the worst examples of heavy metal. You don't have to be professional to notice something wrong in this example. To me it sounds more like a selection of sound effects to fill the silence (like in silent movies) rather than actual melody, catchy rhythm and/or harmony. But surely there are people who find this piece musical enough.
Quote:
Making same constant noise during 5 minutes isn't that.
I think we already settled up the matter with what is a fan recording of a metal show and its difference with the actual studio track.
Quote:
But I can at least make an idea about what I hear.
This is getting old. I already told you the discussed example was not an official live video/DVD/whatever where the discernibility of the played music is required. For heavy metal bootlegs it is intended that everyone already knows the song. But it's still related to music, so I dropped it in. People who are into heavy metal (Galaad, are you here?) are undoubtedly okay with the presented content.
To close the topic, an example of a metal fan feedback on my FB page.
This person did find out some new things about the band's live performance of a specific song while watching to a bootleg video. Dixi.
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fred79
Disgraceful
Undefeatable Hero
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posted November 09, 2015 07:49 PM |
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i like many different genre's of music. death metal to classical, gangster rap to country, electronic to blues, etc.
i don't see why there has to be any militant divide on music taste. to each their own. unless you like teeny pop, fake rock, and club rap... then you need to be killed with fire. 
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted November 09, 2015 08:27 PM |
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Salamandre, music is more than what you allow for. You aren't the measure - no man is.
In the Dick Cavett Show Jimi Hendrix was asked about whether he liked to play "unorthodox sounds", with a view on his rendition of the Star Spangled Banner and he said he didn't think it was unothodoc, but beautiful.
And he was right. It was a lot of noise, and it was beautiful, because it meant something.
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blob2
Undefeatable Hero
Blob-Ohmos the Second
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posted November 09, 2015 08:35 PM |
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WOfhWkgKvE
Some of you probably played World of Warcraft so you know this piece, but I didn't cause I didn't play the game (yet). Stumbled on it by chance and it's just incredible. Even for Blizzards standards. Imo it fully captures the essence of the Tauren race in this short 2+ minutes. I listen to Native American Music from time to time (or music inspired by folk in general) and I fullheartedly recommend this piece even if you don't like/didn't play the game...
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted November 09, 2015 10:18 PM |
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JollyJoker said:
Salamandre, music is more than what you allow for. You aren't the measure - no man is.
I would like to recall to our estimated music specialists here that I don't claim to define anything, but instead I base my opinions on 5 centuries (thats 500 years yes) of musical genres and styles progress. History, baby.
So when we do that, we will find out that music development goes through time horizontally, fluently, without hurts, and always based on previous step achieved, this way its structure and language is safely kept. You have Mozart which will develop the Gregorian chants and use it in liturgical compositions within a much more nurtured orchestration - which later gave naturally birth to his operas, then you have Beethoven which starts from Mozart sonata and concerto forms then adds romantic episodes, preambles and codas; then you have Brahms which innovates the Beethoven's sonata form by adding harder and harder modulations and by that extending the episodes duration; you have Schumann, Liszt and Chopin which slowly but surely break all previous classical forms by creating the harmonic delays -delay a modal chord by moving consecutively its voices but never at same time. Then it continues that way, until middle 20th century.
Why do I say this, not to give a lesson, but to unmask an important detail: any of those guys seriously knew, memorized then studied what the others did, and only then added to previous techniques its own modifications and innovations. And so on, until 1945 where Bartok writes the last tonal work in the history, his 3rd piano concerto. There is a chain. There is a progress.
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Now, basically, what you say is: the last 40 years of music, experiments and bollocks are the musical reality today, and if you deny that, you are nothing but an arrogant prick. But one can notice there is ZERO quality material borrowed from the classical period, the melodies became shockingly simple and mediocre, the harmonies became scholar, the interpreters became mostly show-men, often without any serious culture, and this should count as much as the other 500 of tasteful and refined evolution? Okay, I admit, talking about the big picture, there is NOT everything like that, there are still responsible artist which draw, with respect, their inspiration from ancestors, but that is still a rare case.
So now let's sweep the 500 years of good music because, well, it needs some education and progressive habit time -unfortunately; or the people today have no longer patience to master an art, they must be an artist NOW, get fame, money and girls. Hopefully there are out other people without any musical education -the FANS, often with a serious affective deficit and in great seek of someone to idolater -, which will greatly help this modern phenomenon to spread. The motto became "the beauty is in the eye of the beholder" so basically no one can ever criticize any longer without instantly become an arrogant jerk and in denial of the INDIVIDUAL TASTE SUPREMACY. The amateur and the professional are now on same step and one of them is very proud of that. Naturally.
Now just think, how is your claim any serious, when trying to define a such small period (40 years? this is like going from Beethoven opus 10 to opus 70, minor changes in language) as MUSIC TODAY, which didn't make any concrete proof through history, which is not even collectively admitted as valid musical progress by all the musical styles actors -see, I am coming from the classic area and I don't get or understand them, which still divides the public into "old people" and "young people" as we can, unfortunately, notice the public age and statistics.
So if there is someone arrogant here, that is not me. That is the one trying to mute me when I praise the classical heritage and worry about its definitive destruction. For a result which should only count at best as experiment, because this is what 40 years of music mean.
Remember that when you cry at me from your high horse with tiny legs.
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orzie
Responsible
Supreme Hero
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posted November 09, 2015 10:34 PM |
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Edited by orzie at 22:45, 09 Nov 2015.
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Quote:
I would like to recall to our estimated music specialists here that I don't claim to define anything, but instead I base my opinions on 5 centuries (thats 500 years yes) of musical genres and styles progress. History, baby.
Music lives much more than 500 years. History, baby.
Quote:
That is the one trying to mute me when I praise the classical heritage and worry about its definitive destruction.
Nobody touches the classical heritage. Classics will always be the classics. The music is not limited to it, and that's all - otherwise it wouldn't be called "classics". Classics is something that is established, and unchangeable, as anything people got used to.
How many things did you compose in a classic style? The 20th century music is way different with the appearance of jazz. Yes, it was obstructed by many classicists, but jazz is something that makes classics classical. There always must be a development going in some way. Jazz didn't follow the classical rules of harmony, but its sound has become liked all over the world nonetheless. It has stretched the boundaries, and has given birth to many new musical directions which made music accessible not only to noble elites.
Music is not limited by academic standards. I am sure you won't be able to compose an awesome heavy metal song (which, to say abstractly and not mentioning I love different kinds of music, makes your musical skills, experience and the like competely useless for me). People seek different things from music, and... if you did experience huge problems with salary, I (probably) could understand your whining about people not caring about highly professional academic music anymore. But generally, there will be always a place for classics, and there is no need to get hard on people who simply don't share your taste. Without rock music it's hardly a fact that I would switch to classics. Most probably, I would not be a music fan at all.
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted November 09, 2015 10:45 PM |
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Edited by artu at 22:48, 09 Nov 2015.
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@Sal
Once again, I feel the need to mention that popular music of today is the equavalent of folk music of pre-industrial times and if you compare something like Pink Floyd or James Brown to what was being played in a village with an accordion 200 years ago, there is actually quite a progress. Also, music that evolves in the recording era usually tinkers with the sound, rather than compositional elements. That's why examples like JJ's, a Heavy Metal hit coming back as a Latino Pop hit is possible, the composition is the same but the sound makes it entirely something else, it even changes the genre.
None of this is to say everything is absolutely subjective but it can be misleading to compare a tradition where music is inherited as written text to a tradition where people actually hear the artists of the past themselves, the studio effects, their pick of guitar tone, a saxaphone solo improvisation etc. An identically played guitar solo can have a completely different result if played with a Gibson, instead of a Fender for example.
____________
Are you pretty? This is my occasion. - Ghost
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orzie
Responsible
Supreme Hero
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posted November 09, 2015 10:54 PM |
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Edited by orzie at 23:01, 09 Nov 2015.
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Quote:
and if you compare something like Pink Floyd or James Brown to what was being played in a village with an accordion 200 years ago, there is actually quite a progress.
Actually yes, some kinds of rock are definitely a modern analog of ancient tribal battle marches. When I was a kid, this music actually gave me adrenaline and I wanted to go to gym immediately. The visuals accompanying it also made a great impact. The falsecord (fry) vocal technique is a somewhat rudiment of animal grunting which was inherited from the times when human was much closer to animal.
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Corribus
Hero of Order
The Abyss Staring Back at You
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posted November 10, 2015 01:06 AM |
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I'd have to side with Salamandre to some extent. At some point, sound becomes indistinguishable from noise. At what point it still qualifies as music is an academic point. One thing I do know is that I certainly can't understand how anyone could listen to that and honestly say it has any pleasant aural quality whatsoever. I feel the enjoyment of it is unrelated to the actual essence of the sound.
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I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're goin', and hook up with them later. -Mitch Hedberg
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