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What are the most annoying things about modern composers?

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Neil McGowan
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« Reply #75 on: November 24, 2016, 08:51:33 pm »

Many thanks for Belle, Bonne, Sage!

I hoped you would appreciate that one, Mr Harp :))  It's the "prettiest" of Cordier's pieces, and perhaps the most lyrically melodic - although not the most 'ingenious'.  Tout par compas ('All by the compass') is a circular canon which has a separate canon (in a different metre!) as its accompaniment. Worth a Google, if you have time on your hands :)

I somewhat regret the absence on this forum of our erstwhile chum 'Baziron' - who was far more 'up' than I am on these ars subtilior works.
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BigEdLB
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« Reply #76 on: July 03, 2017, 09:18:38 am »

Here are two annoyances:

Composers who claim that nothing more can be done with tonality because so many composers have used it in the past, so that it is now exhausted. You might as well say that no more poetry can be written in English for the same reason. It just shows a lack of imagination.

Composers who claim to "reinvent musical language" with every new piece. For crying out loud!

I think you are onto something.  Tonality lives - those who deny it are probably lazy
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ahinton
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« Reply #77 on: July 03, 2017, 03:27:19 pm »

Here are two annoyances:

Composers who claim that nothing more can be done with tonality because so many composers have used it in the past, so that it is now exhausted. You might as well say that no more poetry can be written in English for the same reason. It just shows a lack of imagination.

Composers who claim to "reinvent musical language" with every new piece. For crying out loud!

I think you are onto something.  Tonality lives - those who deny it are probably lazy
Leaving aside the fact that "tonality" is not so much a finite phenomenon as a matter of degree, I don't imagine that anyone would deny that it lives, whatever kind of music they might write and/or listen to; likewise, I've yet to encounter a composer who would claim either "that nothing more can be done with tonality because so many composers have used it in the past, so that it is now exhausted" or "to 'reinvent musical language' with every new piece"
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BigEdLB
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« Reply #78 on: July 03, 2017, 07:34:43 pm »

Here are two annoyances:

Composers who claim that nothing more can be done with tonality because so many composers have used it in the past, so that it is now exhausted. You might as well say that no more poetry can be written in English for the same reason. It just shows a lack of imagination.

Composers who claim to "reinvent musical language" with every new piece. For crying out loud!

On more reflection, I come to think about non tonal music as use of an expanded pallets.  Though most of my compositions are tonal I make an occasional foray to the 'dark side'

Chaos:  The Sedimentary Lines of the Grand Canyon
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ahinton
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« Reply #79 on: July 03, 2017, 08:36:44 pm »

Here are two annoyances:

Composers who claim that nothing more can be done with tonality because so many composers have used it in the past, so that it is now exhausted. You might as well say that no more poetry can be written in English for the same reason. It just shows a lack of imagination.

Composers who claim to "reinvent musical language" with every new piece. For crying out loud!

On more reflection, I come to think about non tonal music as use of an expanded pallets.  Though most of my compositions are tonal I make an occasional foray to the 'dark side'

Chaos:  The Sedimentary Lines of the Grand Canyon
The expansion of "tonality" into areas that some might describe as "non-tonality" or "atonality" has only served to widen the expressive capabilities of music. I don't know why "atonlaity" - whatever that might mean to whomsoever - should be regarded as some kind of "dark side" as though this could and should be thought of as its only possible manifestation.
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BigEdLB
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« Reply #80 on: July 03, 2017, 09:31:49 pm »

Here are two annoyances:

Composers who claim that nothing more can be done with tonality because so many composers have used it in the past, so that it is now exhausted. You might as well say that no more poetry can be written in English for the same reason. It just shows a lack of imagination.

Composers who claim to "reinvent musical language" with every new piece. For crying out loud!

On more reflection, I come to think about non tonal music as use of an expanded pallets.  Though most of my compositions are tonal I make an occasional foray to the 'dark side'

Chaos:  The Sedimentary Lines of the Grand Canyon
The expansion of "tonality" into areas that some might describe as "non-tonality" or "atonality" has only served to widen the expressive capabilities of music. I don't know why "atonlaity" - whatever that might mean to whomsoever - should be regarded as some kind of "dark side" as though this could and should be thought of as its only possible manifestation.

When I said, "Dark Side", I was being very tongue and cheek.    I have participated on other sites where anything but  conservative tonality was described by a couple of users as, "Disgusting".  When I suggested to them that They needed to get over the fact that Robert Schumann was dead, they weren't happy.  LOL
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ahinton
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« Reply #81 on: July 03, 2017, 10:23:05 pm »

Here are two annoyances:

Composers who claim that nothing more can be done with tonality because so many composers have used it in the past, so that it is now exhausted. You might as well say that no more poetry can be written in English for the same reason. It just shows a lack of imagination.

Composers who claim to "reinvent musical language" with every new piece. For crying out loud!

On more reflection, I come to think about non tonal music as use of an expanded pallets.  Though most of my compositions are tonal I make an occasional foray to the 'dark side'

Chaos:  The Sedimentary Lines of the Grand Canyon
The expansion of "tonality" into areas that some might describe as "non-tonality" or "atonality" has only served to widen the expressive capabilities of music. I don't know why "atonlaity" - whatever that might mean to whomsoever - should be regarded as some kind of "dark side" as though this could and should be thought of as its only possible manifestation.

When I said, "Dark Side", I was being very tongue and cheek.    I have participated on other sites where anything but  conservative tonality was described by a couple of users as, "Disgusting".  When I suggested to them that They needed to get over the fact that Robert Schumann was dead, they weren't happy.  LOL
I imagine that I might just be able to guess one particular site to which you allude, but no names and all that...
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BigEdLB
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« Reply #82 on: July 03, 2017, 11:06:34 pm »

Here are two annoyances:

Composers who claim that nothing more can be done with tonality because so many composers have used it in the past, so that it is now exhausted. You might as well say that no more poetry can be written in English for the same reason. It just shows a lack of imagination.

Composers who claim to "reinvent musical language" with every new piece. For crying out loud!

On more reflection, I come to think about non tonal music as use of an expanded pallets.  Though most of my compositions are tonal I make an occasional foray to the 'dark side'

Chaos:  The Sedimentary Lines of the Grand Canyon
The expansion of "tonality" into areas that some might describe as "non-tonality" or "atonality" has only served to widen the expressive capabilities of music. I don't know why "atonlaity" - whatever that might mean to whomsoever - should be regarded as some kind of "dark side" as though this could and should be thought of as its only possible manifestation.

When I said, "Dark Side", I was being very tongue and cheek.    I have participated on other sites where anything but  conservative tonality was described by a couple of users as, "Disgusting".  When I suggested to them that They needed to get over the fact that Robert Schumann was dead, they weren't happy.  LOL
I imagine that I might just be able to guess one particular site to which you allude, but no names and all that...

 ;D  There may be more than one now that I think of it
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« Reply #83 on: July 05, 2017, 10:05:30 am »

Here are two annoyances:

Composers who claim that nothing more can be done with tonality because so many composers have used it in the past, so that it is now exhausted. You might as well say that no more poetry can be written in English for the same reason. It just shows a lack of imagination.

Composers who claim to "reinvent musical language" with every new piece. For crying out loud!

I think you are onto something.  Tonality lives - those who deny it are probably lazy
Leaving aside the fact that "tonality" is not so much a finite phenomenon as a matter of degree, I don't imagine that anyone would deny that it lives, whatever kind of music they might write and/or listen to; likewise, I've yet to encounter a composer who would claim either "that nothing more can be done with tonality because so many composers have used it in the past, so that it is now exhausted" or "to 'reinvent musical language' with every new piece"

Sorry, I have heard both those opinions expressed. I can't give you names. In one case, a composer said (on air) that using tonality was like taking a bath in someone else's bathwater.

I also remember attending the premier of a work by James Macmillan and sitting alongside two other composers. One of them exclaimed in a tone of horror, "He's abandoned modernism!"
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ahinton
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« Reply #84 on: July 05, 2017, 11:55:56 am »

Here are two annoyances:

Composers who claim that nothing more can be done with tonality because so many composers have used it in the past, so that it is now exhausted. You might as well say that no more poetry can be written in English for the same reason. It just shows a lack of imagination.

Composers who claim to "reinvent musical language" with every new piece. For crying out loud!

I think you are onto something.  Tonality lives - those who deny it are probably lazy
Leaving aside the fact that "tonality" is not so much a finite phenomenon as a matter of degree, I don't imagine that anyone would deny that it lives, whatever kind of music they might write and/or listen to; likewise, I've yet to encounter a composer who would claim either "that nothing more can be done with tonality because so many composers have used it in the past, so that it is now exhausted" or "to 'reinvent musical language' with every new piece"

Sorry, I have heard both those opinions expressed. I can't give you names. In one case, a composer said (on air) that using tonality was like taking a bath in someone else's bathwater.

I also remember attending the premier of a work by James Macmillan and sitting alongside two other composers. One of them exclaimed in a tone of horror, "He's abandoned modernism!"
I'm as sorry as you are that you've had the misfortune to experience something that I never have done. In the first instance, I'd have retorted by saying something about throwing the baby out with it, whoever's it was and, in the second, I'd quote Dorothy Parker (albeit out of context) by asking "how can they tell?"...
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Gauk
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« Reply #85 on: July 06, 2017, 10:05:45 am »

Since both composers were speaking on air, repartee would have been fruitless. In the second case, the composer was doing a pre-concert talk about the BBC commission she'd been given. She started by saying something about how her first concern was about how she was going to invent a new musical language for this piece. The result, I have to say, was as dull as a wet Wednesday in Wishaw.
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shamus
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« Reply #86 on: July 06, 2017, 01:33:25 pm »

On subject of thread, and I may be repeating myself, I hate "extended" playing techniques, don't understand what is beautiful about the squawking of the mouthpiece of a saxophone or clarinet, might as well just play a kazoo. Then the habit of some of these "innovators" of having one of the players send out a primal scream right in the middle of something that may actually have its own beauties--until the murder takes place. And don't get me started on the people who manipulate their voices in beastly ways and call it music, Berberian and Monk to name a couple. Oh, well, one size definitely doesn't fit all, but for this listener, beauty of sound which includes some well-composed dissonances and emotional transport are the goals, and I can always go back to Schubert, can't I?
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ahinton
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« Reply #87 on: July 06, 2017, 02:49:23 pm »

Since both composers were speaking on air, repartee would have been fruitless. In the second case, the composer was doing a pre-concert talk about the BBC commission she'd been given. She started by saying something about how her first concern was about how she was going to invent a new musical language for this piece. The result, I have to say, was as dull as a wet Wednesday in Wishaw.
I've never experienced one of those either (so perhaps I should get out more), but it can often be problematic when a composer is invited to spout forth about his/her work; "what I was trying to do in this piece was...", and all that; I fear that it probably fails to enlighten more often that it enlightens. Michael Tippett and even Elliott Carter on occasion strike me as having been guilty of this kind of thing. I must have been conscious of this for a long time because when interviewed about my third piano sonata by BBC more years ago than I care to remember, I said "it's in one movement and plays for around 15 minutes" (and, since it plays for more like 17, I didn't even get that right) which might have sounded rude (albeit quite unintentionally) but I really didn't have anything else to say about it, preferring instead to leave all the "saying" to the pianist whose performance of it was about to be broadcast.
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« Reply #88 on: July 10, 2017, 10:26:48 pm »

It's the same with poetry. I am fond of a remark by Ezra Pound: "Messages are for Western Union". The answer to the question, "What is it about?" should be along the lines of, "It just is".

One composer I knew so hated supplying programme notes that he occasionally asked me to write absurdist parodies of the genre, which probably baffled the audiences.
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« Reply #89 on: August 17, 2017, 01:40:22 pm »

There is no symbiosis/chemistry between music and picture, in my opinion. Don’t know. Maybe those modern composers are just lazy.
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