Hoday,
As a music composer what do you do when you find yourself finished with your long or short term educational goals? What do you do when you start over again and again and again?
Well, the first thing is to evaluate yourself as a musician. Are you happy composing endless arrangements using various augmented sixth chords? Are you happy re-arranging symphonic sounds that were outdated 175 years ago? Although we must study the masters to understand the art and history of music, by the time we fully understand the last 6 periods of music, we're old!
Music today is all ABA or ABACABA form that originated from the Renaissance, to Mozart, to Beethoven, and passed down from there. It's all the same, the average listener just wants a good beat, the younger gens think they own their own originality, the older gens are complacent, ivory towers get taller, and glass ceilings get thicker.
No music is original. We listen to endless arrangements of the 12 bar blues, we hear a continual beat around 4/4 or 12/8 meter (I know, it's not a fraction, shut up), we watch un-educated singers pierce their mutational chink on television variety programs, we play low volume dinners so that people can talk, and we play for free because some young artist is playing for free at the local bar.
So what will you do? Try to get your symphony played? Try to record your great new stuff and sell it to a record company? Have your compositions played by local professors at some church or half-filled auditoriums? Teach? Perform? Play Golf?
Later,
John
Friday, April 6, 2007
Sunday, April 1, 2007
NAMING MUSIC PERIODS
Hoday Hio,
Every musical era has been given a name by which we can recall its place in time but did that name exist during that period? I mean, did they call it The Time of Antiquity during the time of antiquity? Obviously not, since their name would have occured in their present! Actually we're now in the time of our antiquity 1500-or so-years from now, or are we!
Since we began naming the periods we have stereo typed a perception of what music will sound like even before we hear it. We must, for some reason, be able to determine the time and place the piece was written in human history to truly comprehend it. Do we appreciate it more if we know when it was written and what was going on at that time? Perhaps, but I submit that a beautiful piece of music doesn't have to be recognized by time but by its own arrangement of tones that pleases our individuality.
It seems as though we need a name for every possible permutation of musical style down to the dotted 8th, 16th note. And if we hear some sort of sequence we automatically shut it down as a particular style from the past. It is true that most musical ideas have been thought out by the masters - not Snoop Dog, dig a little deeper and you'll find that Beethoven pretty much put music and its history into perspective.
So where are we and what do we call it? I submit that we're lost for words at this point, we're moving too fast, and we're trying to hard. Why should we call it anything? Why do we need to classify whether it's a symphonic, a cool jazz, or a hip hop piece? Why do we always need to justify its worthiness like our opinion matters? Sometimes I feel like none of us humans know anything when we feel we know everything! However, one thing for sure is that when I finally get my doctorates, I will know everything and you will call me Doctor! Ha!
Stop naming periods, stop comparing, keep composing, keep playing, study your history and maybe we'll come up with something that will stay around for more than 10 weeks on a pop chart. I too, however want music to grow, but I seriously doubt that by the time we notice the growth, someone from the future will be naming it long after we've decomposed! Ouch!
Later!
John
Every musical era has been given a name by which we can recall its place in time but did that name exist during that period? I mean, did they call it The Time of Antiquity during the time of antiquity? Obviously not, since their name would have occured in their present! Actually we're now in the time of our antiquity 1500-or so-years from now, or are we!
Since we began naming the periods we have stereo typed a perception of what music will sound like even before we hear it. We must, for some reason, be able to determine the time and place the piece was written in human history to truly comprehend it. Do we appreciate it more if we know when it was written and what was going on at that time? Perhaps, but I submit that a beautiful piece of music doesn't have to be recognized by time but by its own arrangement of tones that pleases our individuality.
It seems as though we need a name for every possible permutation of musical style down to the dotted 8th, 16th note. And if we hear some sort of sequence we automatically shut it down as a particular style from the past. It is true that most musical ideas have been thought out by the masters - not Snoop Dog, dig a little deeper and you'll find that Beethoven pretty much put music and its history into perspective.
So where are we and what do we call it? I submit that we're lost for words at this point, we're moving too fast, and we're trying to hard. Why should we call it anything? Why do we need to classify whether it's a symphonic, a cool jazz, or a hip hop piece? Why do we always need to justify its worthiness like our opinion matters? Sometimes I feel like none of us humans know anything when we feel we know everything! However, one thing for sure is that when I finally get my doctorates, I will know everything and you will call me Doctor! Ha!
Stop naming periods, stop comparing, keep composing, keep playing, study your history and maybe we'll come up with something that will stay around for more than 10 weeks on a pop chart. I too, however want music to grow, but I seriously doubt that by the time we notice the growth, someone from the future will be naming it long after we've decomposed! Ouch!
Later!
John
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