[PhonoPhi]

Is this music predictable?

To me, the pop music feel "predictable", even more like regurgitation of previously thoroughly chewed meals for optimal mass digestion...
But then the pop-celebriries, like Taylor Swift, are "economic phenomena", similar to listening to $1k+ cables, i guess...

P. S. I feel that the tragedy of Haydn is that his output is massive and quite even, and he did not left prominent masterpieces like many other composers.

 

[71 dB]

Is this music predictable?

I'd say its predictability is on the correct level for it to work well as music composed in the 18th century.

To me, the pop music feel "predictable", even more like regurgitation of previously thoroughly chewed meals for optimal mass digestion...
But then the pop-celebriries, like Taylor Swift, are "economic phenomena", similar to listening to $1k+ cables, i guess...

Pop music is indeed very predictable, but that's the point. It is about the hooks which makes it very predictable. Sometimes I want to listen to very predictable music with hooks. Pop music happens to be just right for that, but I don't listen to Taylor Swift. There are other artists suiting my personal taste better, for example Kesha's Gag Order album offers interesting ideas while being predictable pop music. The trends of pop music affect strongly how much enjoyment I get out of it. Most trends render pop music unlistenable well-produced garbage for me, but pop music of 2010-2012 is fabulous to my ears. I just love that stuff!

 

[castleofargh]

I’m guessing predictable for a trained musician might be fairly different from predictable to me.

To me it’s Albinoni who’s extremely borictable. I do love 2 little things from him but I’ve been told he probably didn’t write them... which somehow would make perfect sense to me as I have zero attraction for the rest.
Mozart is my man with the requiem( it’s the only work where I bought maybe 15 versions). But I don’t care much for the rest(I’m not an opera guy, so that’s already a massive cut into classical music). No shame, it’s personal taste, I can say it! ^-^
As a teen I was all about Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky and Bach. Now I somehow have become one of those lame people who mostly listens to classical as background music while I need to focus on work. And for that, a simple piano(not some speed runs by Chopin or Rachma, but the calmer simpler works) or some organ(almost exclusively Bach), that’s my stuff now. Strangely, even for that, I still don’t reach out for Albinoni. Sorry dude.

24bit FTW! I’m safe from being off topic.

 

[Ryokan]

Yeah, I suppose lack of electric guitars makes music boring for many.

And drum kits that go bing bang bosh

To quote Stansfield after his openings Beethoven does get a little boring.

24 bit..

..the other 3 weren't convinced.

 

[castleofargh]

I got this research on white people and electric guitar.

 

[bigshot]

I have a friend who is a professional singer songwriter whose specialty is jazz chords. Music in certain keys and time signatures that resolve cleanly seem "old timey" to him. It's like a blind spot because he's so used to thinking in a different kind of direction. I'm sure the blind spot for Mozart isn't uncommon. I was one of those folks who thought of him as "too pretty" until I dug a little deeper and found out what a wide range of music he produced. That said more about me and my experience and tastes at the time than it did Mozart.

 

[71 dB]

To me it’s Albinoni who’s extremely borictable.

I wouldn't say "borictable", but not the most interesting baroque composer either.

Mozart is my man with the requiem( it’s the only work where I bought maybe 15 versions). But I don’t care much for the rest(I’m not an opera guy, so that’s already a massive cut into classical music). No shame, it’s personal taste, I can say it! ^-^

Mozart wrote some 22 operas, but I am not really into them. Mozart wrote TONS of other music. Piano Concertos got me interested of Mozart. Symphony No. 39 is my favorite of his followed by Jupiter Symphony No. 41. Mozarts chamber music is very nice.

Quite a small fraction of classical music is actually operas, so if you are not into those, there are A LOT other stuff, especially from composers who didn't wrote operas.

As a teen I was all about Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky and Bach.

As a teen I was starting to listen to music and it wasn't classical music. It was electronic dance music (acid house). Even in my early twenties I thought classical music was too old-fashioned for modern ears, because I knew so little about. When I finally got interested of classical music in my mid twenties, Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky were among my early "interests", but soon I developped some kind of allergy for the music of Rachmaninov. Same happened with Sibelius. Tchaikovsky is okay at small quantities sometimes. J. S. Bach however is my favourite composer alongside Elgar.

Now I somehow have become one of those lame people who mostly listens to classical as background music while I need to focus on work.

To me New Age music is superior background music to anything else.

And for that, a simple piano(not some speed runs by Chopin or Rachma, but the calmer simpler works) or some organ(almost exclusively Bach), that’s my stuff now. Strangely, even for that, I still don’t reach out for Albinoni. Sorry dude.

New Age artists have nice relaxing simple piano background music: Michael Jones, David Lanz, Wayne Gratz,...

 

[bigshot]

One of the things I find about current performance practice of pre-Romantic music (I hesitate to use the term "historical" because I'm not convinced it really is historical) is that the music is performed very straight and metrically even. I think this contributes to it being accused of being boring. I think it's great to have options when it comes to interpretations, but we don't have as many today as there were in the first half of the 20th century in the era of the great conductors. Expressiveness in the conducting can bring a LOT out of these "predictable" works and make them exciting and vital. A good example is the way Stokowski handles Albinoni's famous Adagio in G...



This is a mediocre live recording. I couldn't find Stoki's RCA recording on YouTube, but it will give you an idea of what I'm talking about. Purists may blanche with horror at the scale and romantic touches, but Stokowski was an organist himself, as well as being a master of string tone, so he brings a whole new dimension to the work.

I'm of the opinion that the composer and the conductor are equal partners in creating a musical performance. In the past, when most music was performed live in concert halls, conductors took risks, experimented and found ways to incorporate something of themselves into their performances. When the last note was played, the performance moved into memory and the next time the conductor took up the work, he could reinvent and start from scratch if he wanted to. In the era where most performances are played back as recordings, the goal is to create the "one and true" performance... straight, idiomatic and without any reinterpretation by the performer. That has led to a homogeneity in sound that I feel makes the music boring.

Give me Glenn Gould or Leopold Stokowski any day of the week. I can appreciate Beethoven done fast or slow, polite or brash, romantic or HIP. Each different interpretation reveals something different in the music. Variety is the spice of life.

 

[71 dB]

I have a friend who is a professional singer songwriter whose specialty is jazz chords.

Aka triads with extensions and the fifth and even the root note sometimes omitted. Jazz is among the most harmonically complex music.

Music in certain keys and time signatures that resolve cleanly seem "old timey" to him.

As it should. The question is can he appreciate "old timey" things?

It's like a blind spot because he's so used to thinking in a different kind of direction.

That's his own fault in isolating himself from other type of "directions." Healthy music diet means listening to different types of music to not limit your taste, but instead even making it broader.

I'm sure the blind spot for Mozart isn't uncommon. I was one of those folks who thought of him as "too pretty" until I dug a little deeper and found out what a wide range of music he produced. That said more about me and my experience and tastes at the time than it did Mozart.

I had a "blind spot" for Mozart too. I had been into classical music at least for 5 years before getting more interested of Mozart. As I mentioned in my previous post, it was his Piano Concertos. I understood how Mozart worked within the stylistic framework of classism and one needs to pay attention to how he operated in such a framework. Some other composers such as Liszt took even longer to get into...

 

[bigshot]

"Bad artists always admire each other's work. They call it being large-minded and free from prejudice. But a truly great artist cannot conceive of life being shown, or beauty fashioned, under any conditions other than those that he has selected." - Oscar Wilde

 

[Ryokan]

Used to watch The Selfish Giant every year as a kid didn't realise til recently it was written by Oscar Wilde.

 

[bigshot]

Quite a small fraction of classical music is actually operas

That struck me as not being true, so I looked it up. There are over 30,000 operas, of which 3,000 are core repertoire to this day. Wagner called opera the greatest art, because it is the synthesis of all arts... drama, acting, music, singing, stagecraft, design, etc. I think the fact that operas have been only experienced by most people as sound recordings in the last fifty to seventy five years is the reason why more people aren't familiar with them. That's like listening to movies with the TV off! My grandmother was named after an opera. At the turn of the 20th century opera was like Star Wars to people. Home theater and blu-ray has sparked an upswing in interest in opera. One of the main reasons I got my projection system was to be able to see operas BIG, and subtitles draw me into the story without having to refer to a libretto in my lap.

If anyone is interested in dipping their toes in opera, I'm happy to recommend some videos.

Rachmaninoff is great too. So is Sibelius. It all depends on the performers. That is particularly true of Sibelius. (Hint: Kajanus, not Karajan... You can't expect a German conductor to bring the most out of Sibelius.)

 

[71 dB]

That struck me as not being true, so I looked it up. There are over 30,000 operas,

That is more than I thought.

of which 3,000 are core repertoire to this day.

Really? That many are core repertoire?

Wagner called opera the greatest art, because it is the synthesis of all arts... drama, acting, music, singing, stagecraft, design, etc. I think the fact that operas have been only experienced by most people as sound recordings in the last fifty to seventy five years is the reason why more people aren't familiar with them. That's like listening to movies with the TV off! My grandmother was named after an opera. At the turn of the 20th century opera was like Star Wars to people. Home theater and blu-ray has sparked an upswing in interest in opera. One of the main reasons I got my projection system was to be able to see operas BIG, and subtitles draw me into the story without having to refer to a libretto in my lap.

It would be strange if Wagner, one on the greatest opera composers who mainly composed operas, would say otherwise. It would be as surprising as if Chopin said he hated piano as an instrument. I also think opera were the films of time before film was invented. That said, Star Wars movies are only a fraction of all movies. My point was if you remove all operas, there is still a cornucopia of classical music left. How many thousands of Symphonies alone? How many String Quartets? Piano Sonatas? Violin Concertos? Divertimentos? Overtures? Cantatas? Good luck exploring it all in one lifetime! I think Klaus Heymann of Naxos label estimated there are 2 million hours worth of classical music composed and the 30,000+ operas can't be more than 5 % of it all.

 

[bigshot]

Too much great art is never enough!

The point isn't to hear all of any one kind of music in a lifetime. It's to hear as much great music as you possibly can. Start at the top of every genre and work your way downward!

Here's where I got those stats... https://www.music-opera.com/en/event/opera#:~:text=There is evidence that since,3,000 works are regularly featured. This is a site that sells opera tickets. 862 operas scheduled with tickets on sale as we speak! The great thing about opera is that performance always makes it different, and no version is definitive. They all put the spotlight on different aspects of the drama.

 

[gregorio]

To me, the pop music feel "predictable", even more like regurgitation of previously thoroughly chewed meals for optimal mass digestion...

Yes, to me too. The difficulty here is the use of the term “predictable” which to a large degree can be exchanged with the term “expectation”, EG. It’s predictable if it does/goes how we expect. But then that gets complex because the history of classical music is largely about what we “expect”; melodies and harmonies create dissonances, progress/lead into each other and “resolve” into consonances in line with rules developed over centuries based on what sounds right/is “expected” . In the mid romantic period and later, holding that “expectation” before “resolving” it is one of the defining traits. In other words, “predictability” isn’t necessarily the issue (“boring”), it’s more about the details of how we (composers) deal with predictability. Ravel’s Bolero should be one of the most boring pieces of classical music ever written but it’s a firm favourite of classical audiences.

P. S. I feel that the tragedy of Haydn is that his output is massive and quite even, and he did not left prominent masterpieces like many other composers.

Not sure that’s entirely true. There’s the “London Symphonies”, “The Creation”, the “Tost” quartets and the Trumpet Concerto. In a sense though, Hayden’s great genius is also his own downfall. If you pioneer a musical form (the symphony) that is so appreciated, respected, popular and long lived, it’s inevitable that other geniuses will come along, develop it further and that you’ll eventually be superseded.

I’m guessing predictable for a trained musician might be fairly different from predictable to me.

That’s not necessarily true or rather, predictability is not necessarily a bad thing. I’ve known a number of classical musicians who would list Mozart as their favourite composer. On the other hand, actually getting inside a piece (when you practice and perform it) and analysing the score in detail definitely gives you a perspective that is likely to be significantly different to an average member of the audience. Although again, that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll like it less. In addition, a musician is almost certainly going to be biased by the instrument they play. An orchestral trumpet player is most likely to be biased towards those pieces which have particularly good (and enjoyable to play) trumpet parts but also, after 80 rehearsals and 20 performances of say Mozart’s Symphony 40, it can get a bit boring for some, especially as it’s not very technically demanding for many of the musicians compared to today’s standards. Additionally, I can (or could) usually stop at a particular point in a Mozart score and ask “what would be the perfect chord/chord progression or orchestration to use next” and almost invariably, my answer to that question is exactly what Mozart actually did. Of course, I’m no Mozart, I just have the benefit of knowing the “rules” from 200+ years of Mozart being extensively studied and analysed, “rules” that Mozart knew instinctively and was at least partially responsible for establishing as “rules”, an entirely different scenario.

In the era where most performances are played back as recordings, the goal is to create the "one and true" performance... straight, idiomatic and without any reinterpretation by the performer.

That’s not really true. It’s certainly true that recordings provide a historic, repeatable record of definitive performances/interpretations, which cannot help but influence and potentially limit other performers’ interpretations. Additionally, due to the ability to edit takes, there is an audience expectation of a level of technical excellence not expected before the age or recordings, which can also influence the levels of risk performers’ are willing to take. However, these are both just somewhat limiting factors, NOT factors which completely eliminate reinterpretation or taking performance risks. Indeed, taking risks and individual interpretation is still what separates the “great” performers/conductors from the “good”, albeit within a somewhat tighter framework than was the case before and in the early years of the recording era.

G