[Formerly BS:] Musical snobbery

Subject: RE: BS: Musical snobbery
From: Ron Davies
Date: 04 Feb 13 - 08:39 PM

And by the way, congratulations for discovering classical music on your own.   The more who come to it, the better, no matter what route they take to get there.

Some of us were lucky enough to grow up with it--but as I said, that's just luck.    For me all the Beethoven symphonies, all the Brahms symphonies, Symphonies 3, 4, and5 by Mendelssohn,and most of the Tchaikovsky symphonies, as well all the Beethoven piano concertos, lots of Mozart piano concertos, all the Mozart violin concertos--- and a huge host of other classical music--- are old friends.   And you can't have too many friends.

If somebody says I'm a snob for loving so much classical music, somehow I can live with that--it's their loss that they don't like classical.

Subject: RE: BS: Musical snobbery
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Feb 13 - 08:45 PM

I can't take Wagner, but I'm not daft enough to think I should despise those who do. I go along with the man who wrote "Wagner's music is much better than it sounds". The essential element in snobbery is not that you dislike some aspect of another person, but that you feel superior to them because of this difference.

And the snobbery is directed at the person rather than the cultural artefact. I don't think it is snobbish, for example, to despise The Sun, or in America, perhaps Fox News ( I go by reputation), but it would be snobbery to despise the readers or viewers. (Detesting them might be a different matter. It might be wrong, but it wouldn't be snobbery.)

Subject: RE: BS: Musical snobbery
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Feb 13 - 08:45 PM

I can't take Wagner, but I'm not daft enough to think I should despise those who do. I go along with the man who wrote "Wagner's music is much better than it sounds". The essential element in snobbery is not that you dislike some aspect of another person, but that you feel superior to them because of this difference.

And the snobbery is directed at the person rather than the cultural artefact. I don't think it is snobbish, for example, to despise The Sun, or in America, perhaps Fox News ( I go by reputation), but it would be snobbery to despise the readers or viewers. (Detesting them might be a different matter. It might be wrong, but it wouldn't be snobbery.)

Subject: RE: BS: Musical snobbery
From: Ron Davies
Date: 04 Feb 13 - 09:11 PM

Kevin, don't you even like the overtures--   Tannhaeuser, Lohengrin, Flying Dutchman?--or the choruses?    I love a lot of those.   Admittedly I'm sure it helps that I've been in orchestras which have played the overtures, and in choruses which have sung the Wagner choruses--an unearthly experience.

The arias, etc., which go on forever--I'm with you there. I think somebody also said Wagner has good minutes and awful quarter hours.

Subject: RE: BS: Musical snobbery
From: GUEST,Stim
Date: 04 Feb 13 - 09:40 PM

You like what you like, Ron, I haven't noticed anyone calling you a snob for that.

I'd rather not post any hip-hop lyrics, you can find them if you want. You've made up your mind, and that's fine.   I like a lot of the music that you do, from the 50's and 60's, and could fill in a lot of names that you've forgotten. However, I think pop music is as good as it ever was, and that was then, and this is now.

Subject: RE: BS: Musical snobbery
From: Ron Davies
Date: 04 Feb 13 - 09:56 PM

Sorry, "well-crafted" sticks in my craw.    I have never heard one rap song I would call well-crafted.   You tell us they exist. It's reasonable to ask for the lyrics to support the proposition.

Subject: RE: BS: Musical snobbery
From: GUEST,DDT
Date: 04 Feb 13 - 10:00 PM

"First of all, anybody interested in melody is out of luck.    Melody is hugely important to me (and others, I suspect). Too bad for us.
Then there's subject matter:    misogynistic lyrics, attacks on the police, glorification of weapons and crime--and to top it off, foul language.   There are exceptions on the subject matter issue, but in general that's what it is."

Lack of melody and attacks on the police can also be applied to punk but I have a visceral attraction to punk. Then again, punk is not misogynist and certainly not racist. It's loud, abrasive and noisy but it is meant to express anger and disgust at the world as it is. I recognized elements of dada in punk right off and maybe that had something to do with why it appeals to me. But visceral reaction to punk is that it makes me want to thrash to it whereas my visceral reaction to rap is that it makes me want to turn it off.

I don't think we should lump rap and hip-hop together either. Hip-hop can actually be very melodic. The thing is that both rap and hip-hop are non-musical ways of making music. When you get musical people to play it, you get something musical but when unmusical hacks take a crack at it, you get something that sounds like unmusical hacks fucking around but they make a lot of money while doing it. Consequently, rap has become the reality TV of musical genres. Reality music. Maybe that's what they mean by "keepin' it real."

"So, fine, lots of ballads glorify crime and attack authority.   Na und? Actually, the criminal often repents at the scaffold;   the ballads are often quite moralistic.   So, again, there may be exceptions;    I don't think Sam Hall is sorry for his deeds.   Nor the main protagonist in "Adieu, adieu". And there's lots of misogyny in folk."

For me, it isn't so much the subject matter. It's how the music strikes me on a gut level with no intellection involved. It doesn't matter what rap's subject matter is, I simply don't like it at a gut level. For all the ideas and chances for innovation present in the music, they remain virtually unexplored and always will because the fans are too unsophisticated to accept innovation. They are perfectly content for it to remain the way it is. I'm not trying to be mean, I simply state a fact or at least what I believe to be a fact.

Subject: RE: BS: Musical snobbery
From: Ron Davies
Date: 04 Feb 13 - 10:23 PM

Now admittedly I'm not going to spend much time investigating this but "hip-hop can be very melodic"?   That is an interesting proposition.

I'm willing to dedicate about 3 minutes listening to a hip-hop song deemed to be melodic.    Can you cite one we can call up on YouTube? Please don't say we have to buy it.   That's unconstitutional--cruel and unusual punishment.


"loud, abrasive, and noisy" and "expressing disgust".   That would be" Won't Get Fooled Again", probably the best rock song ever.    But most punk doesn't seem to come close to that standard--a lot is just noise. If you want to protest, it helps if the listener can understand the lyrics.

Subject: RE: BS: Musical snobbery
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Feb 13 - 10:38 PM

Over time the good stuff does tend to survive, and often we learn to recognise the good qualities in it that we may have missed at first, and the rubbish gets left by the way. Not wholly true, because there is always some good stuff that gets ignored t the time, and never gets picked up later. But I can't think of much rubbish that actually survives.

That applies to books, poems, even buildings.

Believing that stuff is rubbish, as opposed to not liking it, isn't in itself snobbish, though we should always be cautious about it. That applies even if it seems pretty popular. If we are right, it doesn't mean we are superior, just that we are lucky.

Subject: RE: BS: Musical snobbery
From: Ron Davies
Date: 04 Feb 13 - 11:12 PM

Kevin, don't you like any Wagner overtures? There are a lot of great melodies and stirring orchestrations.

Subject: RE: BS: Musical snobbery
From: Rapparee
Date: 04 Feb 13 - 11:15 PM

I like this.

Subject: RE: BS: Musical snobbery
From: GUEST,DDT
Date: 04 Feb 13 - 11:21 PM

Some melodic hip-hop

In your face, motherfucker

Subject: RE: BS: Musical snobbery
From: Ron Davies
Date: 04 Feb 13 - 11:27 PM

PDQ Bach is just great stuff.   I don't think New Horizons in Music Appreciation (Beethoven's 5th, first movement, broadcast as a baseball game) has ever been bettered in the field of musical humor.   That whole album, PDQ Bach on the Air, is just spectacular--skewering everything from Baroque music to sports broadcasters, to call-in shows. And the more you know about music, the more you appreciate PDQ Bach.


I was lucky enough to be able to play 2nd kazoo in a live performance of a PDQ Bach concert, with the Maestro conducting.    But the first kazoo got all the glory. Curses, foiled again.

Peter Schickele asked us what we normally wear for a concert.    We said tuxedos. But for this concert we wore bathrobes.

Subject: RE: BS: Musical snobbery
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 05 Feb 13 - 04:17 AM

There are only two types of music in the universe: the first is the music you can hear, the second is the music you can't. This is the same for each and every one of us. The wise man rejoices in the former, and leaves the latter well alone.

The wise man also understands this - that no one music is inherently superior to any other, for they are all the product of 50,0000 years of individual & collective creative Genius which gives rise to a plethora of Musical Traditions & Traditional Musics every single one of which provide the same subjective joy and empowerment to those who love and understand them but fail to engage the passions of those who don't.

Overall this phenomenon is called TASTE - it's about whatever floats your boat.

Subject: RE: BS: Musical snobbery
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 05 Feb 13 - 04:47 AM

Re Wagner. Sitting through the whole of The Ring would be too much for me, but the Ride of the Valkyrie ... When I'm angry or feeling low, I put this on in the car ( I have a Classic FM CD of favourites) at full belt. I have a good music system in my little Fiesta. My word, that piece of music has my heart leaping in two seconds. As to the latest 'Hits' I regularly catch up on them on TV and find myself liking many. I used to adore the fifties and sixties Hits, but today's stuff is just as good, only different. And the accompanying videos are often excellent. No-one surely could call me a 'snob' for liking a bit of Wagner, or 'low-class' for enjoying Ri-ri or Beyonce.
As to the folk who go to Glyndbourne, are people jealous of their wealth perhaps? Because many of them have a bob or two. That doesn't make them 'snobbish', just rich! What I don't like (and other posts have said the same thing) is any type of music performed badly. We all have a right to judge the merit of any performance. That isn't snobbery either.

Subject: RE: BS: Musical snobbery
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 05 Feb 13 - 05:31 AM

""It bothers me if they are thought to be elites..because it is a form of stereotyping that is railed against by most thinking people. Frankly, I am sick and tired of being referred to as an elitists because I like certain things.""

Try reading the whole of my posts, in which I made mention of the genuine lovers of Opera and Classical music, the kind of people who attend the Proms (of which, I am one and can well believe you are also).

My reference was to the kind of people who would close off, by price, access to what they consider their exclusive property. If you haven't seen and heard them, you haven't been looking or listening.

They are much in evidence when Arts Council funding is discussed, yet, no matter how much is awarded, seat prices remain way out of reach for people like me.

Don T.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Musical snobbery
From: GUEST,Big Al Whittle
Date: 05 Feb 13 - 06:15 AM

well crafted rap - look no further than Yorkshireman Nic toczek. he has done Punk, rap, new wave - been a brilliant children's author and gigs all over the world. His work is routinely stolen by millionaire popstars.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9nrSoYuEvg

Subject: RE: BS: Musical snobbery
From: JennieG
Date: 05 Feb 13 - 06:27 AM

The two quotes on Wagner were supposedly said by Rossini and by Mark Twain - Wagner

Cheers
JennieG

Subject: RE: BS: Musical snobbery
From: Will Fly
Date: 05 Feb 13 - 06:49 AM

A good introduction to Wagner is his "Rienzi" overture.

Alternatively, you could have Elmer Fudd singing "Kill the wabbit!"...

Subject: RE: BS: Musical snobbery
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 05 Feb 13 - 07:44 AM

Mark Twain was quoting when he put that sentence on paper in his autobiography. It's supposed to be from a man called Edgar Wilson Nye. Of course he might have taken it from someone else.

Any number of good quotes seem to come from people you've never heard of. They get attached to famous people, I imagine because that's a way of giving them some extra authority. There have been lots of great remarks by Mudcatters over the years. If any of them ever get to be famous quotes, don't expect them to be ascribed to the people who originated them.

Subject: RE: BS: Musical snobbery
From: John P
Date: 05 Feb 13 - 09:13 AM

People who denigrate music that others enjoy are snobs. All musical genres are rife with snobs. I hear it a lot from classical music fans, and from classical music non-fans. The jazz scene is terrible in this way. I hear it regularly on Mudcat about traditional folk music and about non-traditional folk music, and about folk music versus almost anything else. There's a lot of it going on in this thread.

I think the only way that I'm a musical snob is that I don't like to see people who aren't ready to be on stage getting up on stage anyway. There is often an attitude in the folk music community that everyone gets to share and that everyone needs to get a start some time. I disagree. I think people should stay at home until they're ready to perform. Yes, everyone needs to start performing sometime, and I'm very supportive of people who have done their homework and are showing it off for the first time. It's pretty easy to tell the difference between lack of stage experience and lack of sufficient practice (or skill) to be able to play the song competently and remember the words.

Subject: RE: BS: Musical snobbery
From: Ron Davies
Date: 05 Feb 13 - 09:18 AM

Playing 2nd kazoo with PDQ Bach and the National Symphony in the Kennedy Center concert hall was a truly amazing experience.    He sure does have a great dry sense of humor--on or offstage.

And they gave me a contract (admittedly all the verbiage about the Kennedy Center having exclusive rights to my services in the area, in preference to any other venue which might be salivating at the prospect of getting my expertise, was crossed out. )    But they did pay me $100.    I can't recall what the arrangement with the musicians union was, but I was listed as a guest soloist.    Maybe if you're a guest soloist you don't have to be in the union.   I meant to frame the contract but forgot to do it.   But it's somewhere in the house.

And they gave me a fancy kazoo for the occasion.

It must have been really something to see when 180 choristers in bathrobes and carrying toothbrushes came on stage at the Concert Hall As a guest soloist, I unfortunately had to wear a tuxedo.   But that sacrifice was worth it--to put it mildly.

Subject: RE: BS: Musical snobbery
From: Ron Davies
Date: 05 Feb 13 - 09:27 AM

"getting up on stage anyway".   I have to say I disagree. When somebody gets on stage for the first time, that person is bound to be nervous. (In fact that never goes away completely, not matter how many times you perform--it's just less).   So the performance is probably not going to be as good as it was at home.   I think anybody who wants to perform--and has memorized what he or she is doing-- should be supported.    If they are reading it off a sheet, my support goes down dramatically.   Sure it would be nice if everybody in a singaround carried off a song without a hitch.   But that's not a reasonable requirement.

As far as I'm concerned, more power to the beginners.

Subject: RE: BS: Musical snobbery
From: GUEST,Big Al Whittle
Date: 05 Feb 13 - 09:37 AM

no one says you have to like everything. But there are often virtues in music that you don't appreciate -its a bit like modern painting. It is an area of activity that someone has devoted their life to.

You may not get it. But it doesn't mean it is without substance and the artist is not deserving of a measure of respect.

How deep that measure is, is up to you. As the audience, you do the artist the courtesy of listening. How much courtesy he is entitled to, is also up to you.

Subject: RE: BS: Musical snobbery
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 05 Feb 13 - 02:03 PM

'People who denigrate music that others enjoy are h

People who denigrate other people for the music they like are snobs. But saying you think some music is no good isn't snobbish, though it may well be unwise or plain wrong-headed.
............
'. It's pretty easy to tell the difference between lack of stage experience and lack of sufficient practice (or skill) to be able to play the song competently and remember the words.'

No it isn't much of the time. Inexperience makes people come to pieces sometimes.

Subject: RE: BS: Musical snobbery
From: Ron Davies
Date: 05 Feb 13 - 02:23 PM

"the artist"    Commercial rap singers.    Seems to be a contradiction in terms.

They're out for success, for all the trappings that go with it--and especially the money.
Tell me they are expressing their souls.    It's remarkable how conveniently expressing your soul can be done by denigrating women, attacking the police and glorifying weapons and crime. With no requirement to be able to carry a tune.    But you might be advised to carry an automatic weapon, since your fellow artists may take umbrage at something you say or do.

Subject: RE: BS: Musical snobbery
From: Ron Davies
Date: 05 Feb 13 - 02:37 PM

"Cars in Cairo" is great. But it seems poetry rather than rap music--where's the dominating thudding bass? And the sense of humor plays a role--as I've noted before, humor goes a long way to offset any perceived sin.   Give me humor over outrage any day.


But unfortunately commercial "rap artists" seem to specialize in the latter, not the former.

Subject: RE: BS: Musical snobbery
From: Ron Davies
Date: 05 Feb 13 - 02:53 PM

Finally got around to "some melodic hiphop".    Much better than I expected.--mostly since the "artist" seemed to be parodying folk dancing, the song "Buffalo Gals", and hip-hop itself.   And as I just noted, for a sense of humor I'll forgive almost anything--certainly the use of the 4 minutes of my life I will never get back.

Also appreciated that the body count was relatively low.


But "melodic"?    Somebody who swallows that must have had his ears shot off in the war. Somehow I don't think Mozart, Schubert--or Gershwin--need be very concerned about the new competition.

Subject: RE: BS: Musical snobbery
From: Ron Davies
Date: 05 Feb 13 - 02:58 PM

Ah yes, and "In your face" is wonderful.    The perfect self-parody.    I only hope it was meant to be so crude and stupid as to be a parody.   I trust this is so.

Subject: RE: BS: Musical snobbery
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 06 Feb 13 - 06:45 AM

People who denigrate music that others enjoy are snobs.

Idiots more like! This has to be one of the most depressing threads I've read here for too long a while. It's as Folk is a byword for cultural intolerance born, no doubt, from other deep-seated insecurities. Weird given that of all the diverse idioms of Western Popular Music, Folk is the most universally reviled. Go figure!

As for the dreaded 'Rap Music' (you guys kill me) the first time I heard this I wept at the perfectly crafted beauty of the thing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6CJQ_hnm24

Subject: RE: BS: Musical snobbery
From: Ron Davies
Date: 06 Feb 13 - 07:06 PM

Yup. Perfectly crafted, all right.   For somebody who can't do anything without a studio to twist dials in and who seems to have a problem with English--or at least keeps falling into the gutter.   Also interesting how the "tough guy" facade collapsed when Taylor Swift, of all people, caught him being (probably typically) stupid on some high-profile broadcast.

"made me cry"    The poster must be a pool of tears every time he turns on the radio.   Pobrecito.

Subject: RE: BS: Musical snobbery
From: Ron Davies
Date: 06 Feb 13 - 07:10 PM

Sorry, "I wept at...".    Certainly don't want to misquote the illustrious poster.

Subject: RE: BS: Musical snobbery
From: Ron Davies
Date: 06 Feb 13 - 07:13 PM

This is of course on the off-chance that the poster was actually serious in what he said--not that sarcasm has ever been seen on Mudcat.   Of course not.

Subject: RE: BS: Musical snobbery
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 07 Feb 13 - 05:11 AM

Very serious. It's a serious matter - this persistent worrying over music by people who can neither understand, hear or appreciate it, but nevertheless feel themselves qualified to hate. Hip-hop has been the most vital, inspirational & energising idiom of popular music for the last 30 years & more - subjectively speaking that is - I first started hearing it around 1980 and have been constantly startled & delighted by it ever since. I tune into Tim Westwood and I'm amazed afresh each time. The Celebrities come and go, but that's in the nature of a collective Tradition of a music, and its people, which rolls on regardless, innovatively, inspirationally and internationally.

Judging the beauty, craft, genius, virtuosity and vibrancy of a music by such evidently limited musical standards only hints at deeper cultural prejudices. So stick to what to know - which judging by your posts here isn't so very much, eh?

Meanwhile, back in 1994, Digable Planets were grooving with Wah-Wah Watson and Lester Bowie as part of Red Hot & Cool.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkqDmuEmqmo

Subject: RE: BS: Musical snobbery
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 07 Feb 13 - 06:22 AM

""So stick to what to (sic) know - which judging by your posts here isn't so very much, eh?""


And speaking of musical snobbery...........!

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Musical snobbery
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 07 Feb 13 - 06:45 AM

(Sic)

You point out a typo on Mudcat and accuse me of snobbery???!!!

Well - okay - yes - it's a fair cop, Guv! I confess - I'm the biggest musical snob there is, but (mostly) I get on with it in the privacy of my own ivory tower, though this gets difficult in the Radio 2 sucky-blanket realms of Folk Muzak, especially when the heart & soul of the thing (Harry Cox - Harry Smith - Sproatly Smith) is every bit as dynamic & energising & inspirational & unmelodiously filthy as hip-hop.

Now back to my daily labours which today are accompanied by the music of Juan del Enzina (sic) as interpreted by the maestro Jordi Savall.

Subject: RE: BS: Musical snobbery
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 07 Feb 13 - 09:03 AM

Allen Conn:"But listening to the top 40 of the year a few years ago sure drove home the point that our pop music was light years beyond the current crop."

It can also be exaggerated though as to how great things were 40 years ago. Lot of good stuff about then but a lot of less impressive stuff too. We've been watching the old repeats of TOTP since they stared showing them last year at 1976. Skip through most of it as it is pretty dire. Plus there is some good stuff about now too. Just because it doesn't get in the charts doesn't mean it isn't there. Kids nowadays also have easy access to so much. Much more than we did.

Exactly! As someoneelse said, our parents probably said the same thing when we were listening to stuff in the 60s and 70s. There was an *awful* lot of crap about back then....it's just that we only remember/ replay the stuff that's stood the test of time.

And it's ridiculous that so many people just denigrate *all* new music...there's a lot of good stuff about still, admittedly mostly not in the charts....but it was ever thus. The stuff I was listening to in the 60s and 70s was rarely in the charts and my parents had no idea of its existence....in much the same was as those above denigrating all modern music or idioms are almost certainly unaware of the majority of what youngsters are listening to these days.

Subject: RE: BS: Musical snobbery
From: GUEST,Stim
Date: 07 Feb 13 - 11:14 AM

....Here, Ron, from 2004, is a rap video that you might actually like. I posted it then, but I'll do it again, it's a message from Marshall, who they call Eminem...Slim Shady's October Surprise

Subject: RE: BS: Musical snobbery
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 07 Feb 13 - 11:19 AM

I really think you've got to allow for the fact that the music we're inclined to dismiss as crap had a lot of value at the time. I mean - I sit in TERROR watching those old TOTP episodes which goes from the sublime (Bob Marley) to the ridiculous (Brotherhood of Man) in the blink of eye - BUT - someone must have loved this stuff. On another level, I think we must be thankful for it. Without such MOR Schlager there'd have been nothing the underground to kick against - this was (I think) as true in the UK as it was in Germany. Number One the day I was born was You Don't Know by Helen Shapiro; recorded that same year - John Coltrane at The Village Vanguard and The Futuristic Sounds of Sun Ra.

It takes all sorts...

Subject: RE: BS: Musical snobbery
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 07 Feb 13 - 11:32 AM

""And it's ridiculous that so many people just denigrate *all* new music...there's a lot of good stuff about still, admittedly mostly not in the charts....but it was ever thus.""

Absolutely true, just as it is ridiculous that so many people just denigrate *all* folk music...there's a lot of good stuff about still, admittedly mostly not in the charts....but it was ever thus.

But we still get stuff posted like:-

""It's as Folk is a byword for cultural intolerance born, no doubt, from other deep-seated insecurities. Weird given that of all the diverse idioms of Western Popular Music, Folk is the most universally reviled. Go figure!""

or:-

""I'm the biggest musical snob there is, but (mostly) I get on with it in the privacy of my own ivory tower, though this gets difficult in the Radio 2 sucky-blanket realms of Folk Muzak,""

Of which the first seven words have an air of credibility.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Musical snobbery
From: GUEST,DDT
Date: 07 Feb 13 - 04:26 PM

Avant-garde music has little to no melody or rhythm but is pure art. To dismiss it as "stupid" noise made by talentless hacks is the same as saying that because Picasso or Ernst or Pollack or Mondrian didn't try to render photograph-perfect real images, they too were talentless and stupid. Classical and jazz composers and musicians have drawn endless inspiration and ideas from avant-garde pieces. Most of vinyl and CDs of avant-garde were purchased at stores that specialize in classical music because few others will stock them.

The guy who did the music for Looney Tunes was Raymond Scott whose band was primarily jazz and classical. Scott, however, was primarily and avant-garde artist who invented his own electronic keyboards and music machines. He hired an assistant one day to help him. The assistant was skilled at building theremins--a strange electronic instrument used for sound fx in movies and TV but which was a serious instrument (see Clara Rockmore). The assistant was so overwhelmed by Scott's devices and knowledge that he went into making synths. His name was Bob Moog.

John Cage with a very early tape collage from 1952. An example of musique concrete:

Williams Mix

Milton Babbitt composition performed on the enormous RCA Mark II synthesizer housed at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center:

Occasional Variations

Subject: RE: BS: Musical snobbery
From: GUEST,DDT
Date: 07 Feb 13 - 04:30 PM

[For some reason, I can't put all these links in one post.]


An early Moog synth composition by Morton Subotnik.

Silver Apples of the Moon

Edgard Varese's masterpiece that he made with visuals supplied by the Belgian architect Le Corbusier.

Poeme Electronique

Subject: RE: BS: Musical snobbery
From: GUEST,DDT
Date: 07 Feb 13 - 04:33 PM

And let's go one more. This one should be heard with surroundsound speaker and lots of bass.

Tod Dockstader worked with tapes and oscillators prior to full synths being made. This is a piece from 1961. Dockstader also the did the sound fx for the Tom & Jerry cartoons.

Apocalypse II

Subject: RE: BS: Musical snobbery
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 08 Feb 13 - 05:21 AM

But we still get stuff posted like:-

Suggest you put the quotes back in the context of what I said - and what I said back in the context of the discussion - instead of trying to score points for folkish smuggery - a very different thing to musical snobbery, especially as (and I quote) the heart & soul of the thing (Harry Cox - Harry Smith - Sproatly Smith) is every bit as dynamic & energising & inspirational & unmelodiously filthy as hip-hop. Ta!

*

Avant-garde music has little to no melody or rhythm but is pure art.


Worth mentioning here is late Daphne Oram (31 December 1925 – 5 January 2003), the unsung & unlikely mother of UK electronica (& more besides) who's work teetered on the brink of experimentalism owing to its very nature but remained nevertheless rooted in more (dare I say) traditional idioms both classical & popular whilst anticipating a lot of future developments. Her 'Oramics Machine' typifies both the brilliance & eccentricity of her genius, and her music is never less than as perfectly charming as she was - both are the very epitome of Englishness. Lots of clips on YouTube - including the famous 'Snow 1963' film in which she had a hand (certainly you'll find the soundtrack on most Oram collections) as well as the truly stunning 'Four Aspects', the quaintly spooky 'Dr Faustus Suite' and the unsettlingly brilliant 'Bird of Parallax' which weaves electronic sounds & rhythms with orchestral samples and field recordings long before anyone even dreamt of the term 'psychedelic'. Certainly I doubt Ms Oram touched anything stronger than a tawny port in her life.

A brief overview of her work & significance: Daphne Oram, the unsung pioneer of techno

Also on YouTube is a Radio 4 documentary on Daphne Oram entitled 'We Have Also Sound Houses' - a quote taken from here:

We have also sound-houses, where we practise and demonstrate all sounds, and their generation. We have harmonies which you have not, of quarter-sounds, and lesser slides of sounds. Divers instruments of music likewise to you unknown, some sweeter than any you have, together with bells and rings that are dainty and sweet. We represent small sounds as great and deep; likewise great sounds extenuate and sharp; we make divers tremblings and warblings of sounds, which in their original are entire. We represent and imitate all articulate sounds and letters, and the voices and notes of beasts and birds. We have certain helps which set to the ear do further the hearing greatly. We have also divers strange and artificial echoes, reflecting the voice many times, and as it were tossing it: and some that give back the voice louder than it came, some shriller, and some deeper; yea, some rendering the voice differing in the letters or articulate sound from that they receive. We have also means to convey sounds in trunks and pipes, in strange lines and distances.

Francis Bacon, from New Atlantis, 1637.

The Tradition of musical vision & experimentalism is indeed an old & venerable one!

Subject: RE: BS: Musical snobbery
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 08 Feb 13 - 08:16 AM

"Can't a person dislike something without being called a snob?"
Says it all really.
It seems to me more than a little insecure in your own preferences to suggest that people are "snobs" because they don't share them.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Musical snobbery
From: GUEST,999
Date: 08 Feb 13 - 09:39 AM

"[For some reason, I can't put all these links in one post.]"

The reason for that is you are posting as a Guest. That was explained to me a few moons back when I was attending to some stuff in unanswered requests. Just the way it is.

Subject: RE: BS: Musical snobbery
From: GUEST,DDT
Date: 08 Feb 13 - 10:21 AM

I did a bit of a disservice by posting only electronic pieces. Avant-garde does NOT have to be electronic. There are a huge number of avant-garde compositions for conventional instruments and orchestras. Often conventional and non-conventional are mixed in orchestras.

Varese composed a piece for orchestra that utilized a rope being pulled through a hole in a fiberglass tub. George Antheil's "Ballet Mecanique" from 1915 featured door buzzers and airplane propellers among the orchestra. In fact, I believe that Antheil vehemently insisted his composition was NOT avant-garde. Charles Ives wrote avant-gard pieces for orchestras as did Harry Partch who also wrote simply for voices and who created his own instruments so he could compose in microtonal scales.

Below is an avent-garde piece written by Varese for the flute. He wrote it for a friend to commemorate his new platinum flute. Varese entitled it Density 21.5 which is the density of platinum. Not infrequently, you'll hear the more adventurous souls tackle it at flute recitals.

Density 21.5

Subject: RE: BS: Musical snobbery
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 08 Feb 13 - 12:30 PM

On a minor point of pedantry, Harry Partch developed his 43-tone scale as an alternative to what he regarded as the abomination of the 12-tone tempered Western scale. Indeed, the only of his instruments designed to play the 43-tone scale were his retuned harmoniums and his adapted guitars & violas. His mathematics were Pythagorean, taken to extremes so that he could use pure intervals that you couldn't find in Western music. His music otherwise is perfectly 'tonal', though his writing for voice was concerned with the 'intonation' of the vernacular spoken voice rather than with singing per se, but a lot of it is surprisingly tuneful and folksy. Here's his setting of various hitch-hiker inscriptions collected from graffito during his travels which is infused with the humour and playfulness of his admittedly eccentric genius. The spoken voice here is Partch himself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRXDYgYQYXM

Subject: RE: BS: Musical snobbery
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 08 Feb 13 - 12:34 PM

I can be prejudiced, as old people often stick to what they know and love. I was in the car listening to Classic FM when Karl Jenkins' Mass For The Armed Man (the Sanctus) came on. At first I was tempted to switch it off, but very quickly I became captivated. That is music that blows your mind, it really is. One needs to listen and experience different forms of music with an open mind. It's nice to expand your tastes and enlarge your knowledge. Snobbery doesn't come into it.

Subject: RE: BS: Musical snobbery
From: GUEST,DDT
Date: 08 Feb 13 - 01:45 PM

Have you watched the "Silver Apples of the Moon" link? It's utterly mesmerizing.

As far as snobbery goes, there was a time when avant-garde was regarded by classical patrons as horrible noise. I would regard Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" as avant-garde and it caused a riot the night it debuted in Paris. People were outraged because the music and dance were so obscene and animalistic. It didn't have enough melody, damn it! Nowadays, classical music includes much of the avant-garde. You can buy "Rite of Spring" in any Barnes & Noble with a small classical CD section (because I did).

Now, the snobbery has become internal to the music. Read the comments on the Density 21.5 link: "She's playing too fast" "She's playing too slow" "She's playing too mechanically" "She's not playing mechanically enough" "She's playing with too much passion that the pieces wasn't mean to have" "It's too fluid" "It's not fluid enough."

That's what I've always hated about the classical scene and why I prefer to hang out with the jazz set. I've met more jazz people who can play classical music than I ever have the reverse. Of course, most jazz musicians are classically trained and cut their teeth on classical pieces. I played Bach and Chopin until my fingers literally bled. I love classical music but I don't love the stuck-up scene. Don't get me wrong, a lot of classical music lovers are fine people and I have a lot of friends and contacts among them but I got so sick of some ass telling how I played this passage wrong and that it wasn't in the spirit of the composer and that I spoiled the mood the piece was meant to evoke and blah blah blah. "Well, perhaps then, you could show me how Mozart intended for that passage to to be played" and you find out the asshole doesn't even play an instrument or they play stinking.

At least in jazz, they pride themselves on never playing anything the same way twice. Classical fans fight to the death over the composer's instruction to play the piece "poco moto." They'll go around and around about what constitutes poco moto until a normal person is half-crazy from listening to it.

Folk is a bit more like jazz in that you're free to interpret a piece just about anyway you want to. Someone may not care for it but I don't have to hear "that line should be played andante and that doesn't sound andante to me!" And you don't see 8 yo kids being exploited to make money filling concert halls in the folk scene so that these kids are used up and strung out by the time they hit 21.

There isn't much difference between much of classical music behind the scenes and something from "Tiaras and Toddlers". It's the same thing--a popularity contest for children too young to understand how they are being exploited. I'm surprised, in fact, that no one has made a reality show like that. Call it--"So You Think Your Kid's a Virtuoso". I might even watch it to see the talent. But it ruins kids. Imagine being 9 years old and some grown-up is fawning all over you telling you how he has all your CDs and loves them all more than life itself and the only thing you had to do with those CDs is that they shuttled you in to the studio to record your playing and then shuttled you back out once they were done with you. Your whole life is playing, recording, traveling, playing, recording and traveling. I've known adults who couldn't take it. Imagine being a child on the chitlin circuit. The circuit of snobs--half of whom love you for know fair reason and the other half hates you for no fair reason.