@jasensmith said:

Goran,

let me guess, aside from Music, you like to discuss politics?  Well, perhaps we both have something in common afterall.  As much as I would love to engage in political skirmishes with you, I think you would agree that this perhaps isn't the forum for that and out of respect to the moderator and other forumites we should fire our volleys at each other some place else.  I'm quite fond of posting on news forums and I'm sure you'll find me posting in the political section of most of your major news blogs.  Look me up and I'll do my best to set you 'right.'   

You're right (er, left maybe) I probably started it with my first post but I said that to make a point about how one could compare the political scene in the states to the state of affairs in the music world today.  It's just an observation.  Don't take it to heart.

A fair decision, notice taken.

@Another User said:

Now, finally you can write minuets at university, as much as you can write palindromic, pseudo game-theory based, half-integral serial spectral pieces and get through.

Not necessarily an unhealthy phenomenon, the minuets :)

@Another User said:

Not necessarily an unhealthy phenomenon, the minuets 😊

There should be a whole semester spent in university courses on the composition of minuets![Y]

@Errikos said:

. Anybody that wrote anything harmonic would get a professorial response like "if I wanted to listen to Haydn I'd listen to the real thing and not a poor imitation"... Nobody writing a sorry imitation of Webern or Boulez got the same; the least the processors - oh, I meant professors -  could have done, is apply the same standards for everyone. Instead, standards kept falling and falling until these post-thinking, post-mortem, errr - I mean post-modern days, everything is a soup. Now, finally you can write minuets at university, as much as you can write palindromic, pseudo game-theory based, half-integral serial spectral pieces and get through. In these politically quorrect, ahhh I mean correct (what's wrong with me today...), brotherly and sisterly times we live, there can be no disrespect, no dismissal of anybody's ideas or artistic expression... After all, who's to say what's right anymore? What would he know?...

Yeah that is really true unfortunately.  There is a double standard when it comes to tonal vs. atonal music.  If you write something terrible that is tonal, everybody laughs at you.  If you write something terrible that is atonal everyone exclaims that you are a genius because they are afraid that the fact they are experiencing pain while listening to your music is the result of their not being sophisticated enough to appreciate your genius.  So that is why university professors uniformly go into atonal music.  It is a great cover.  With tonal music, you are naked before the world and your competitors are Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn, Mahler, etc.  With atonalism, you have many places to hide and no competition because there are no masters of atonal music.  Just "pioneers" who went forward alone into their brave new world, leaving all the audiences in concert halls behind.  Because in the opinion of these composers audiences are too stupid to understand their great music.

If you really want to do something radical today - write some tonal music.  That is absolute insanity for someone safely ensconced within the illusory comforts of the academic world.

@William said:

There is a double standard when it comes to tonal vs. atonal music.  If you write something terrible that is tonal, everybody laughs at you. 

I remember when a very fanatical and knowledgeable lecturer reminded us (as we were vomiting over something) of one of Cage's famous dicta that went something like: "If you think that something is awful, listen to it again, and again, and again.... Eventually you'll find that it is not awful, but actually very interesting"... I asked him whether he would be prepared to apply that to himself and test it by listening to Andrew Lloyd Webber's 'Phantom of the Opera' over and over, and whether he thought he would end up finding it very interesting. (Silence)....

People tend to forget how hard it is today to write something tonal that will sound fresh and interesting to trained ears (I am not referring to Webber).

Tonal vs. atonal.... Please! Wasn't Stravinsky's example/experiment enough?... And to combine this with the original thread's topic of themes - and I will add musical "giftedness", I think it was David in some earlier post that remarked on how people have forgotten that music is an art that has been developing for many hundreds, actually thousands of years, and people today confuse its totality with one of its recent by-products, pop-music (as a blanket for everything).

Well in the days of Guido d'Arezzo and for hundreds of years before and after, not everyone was admitted as a music student. The master carefully screened and accepted only a handful on whom to pass down the secrets of the venerable art. Other than that, there were no printed materials in order to self-study. No orchestration or counterpoint  books, and certainly no sampled 8-part choral chunks by Hollywoodsteals available for hacks to "write" motets with. Maybe not such a bad idea today....

@Errikos said:

I remember when a very fanatical and knowledgeable lecturer reminded us (as we were vomiting over something) of one of Cage's famous dicta that went something like: "If you think that something is awful, listen to it again, and again, and again.... Eventually you'll find that it is not awful, but actually very interesting"

Good point!

Get someone who specializes in atonal to write some tonal music. It works one way but seldom the other. And lets not get  minimalism mixed up with nihilism. 

It's a lot like art. A lot of art is whacko, of-the-wall stylistically. It's basically crap most of the time but the more it gets intellectualized the more intellectuals start to believe it out of herd instinct. Ironically the proles don't. Get one of these so-called artists to paint something they usually hate - like say a Turner and see what comes out. The minute you start pricing things up - anything goes.

@Errikos said:

music is an art that has been developing for many hundreds, actually thousands of years

Yes, but it is also a language, isn't it?  In other words, it communicates instantly from one person to another.  But one of the overriding characteristics of all modern music has been that each composer, in order to be original at all costs, must develop HIS OWN LANGUAGE.  And be damned to anyone who does not understand him.  So what you have by this analogy is almost exactly what happened in the 20th century.  Every composer gibbering incomprehensibly (except for a few annointed disciples) in his own language. 

I am not trying to reject all modern music though.  There are many great composers in the modern era.  But the escalation of "advancements" in musical language has resulted in more and more phonies, not to mention even great composers such as Stravinsky getting sucked into meaninglessness.  Who here for example likes to listen to "Rite of Spring" ?  Probably everyone. It is total fun and inspiration to listen to.  But who listens to "History of a Soldier" ?  For fun?  Honestly.  So even great musical minds have gotten sucked into this maelstrom. The basic universal concept among modernism has been above all - ORIGINALITY AT ALL COSTS INCLUDING QUALITY.  This is in contrast to the fact that many of the greatest composers such as Bach were NOT VERY ORIGINAL.  They were in fact old fogeys in their own day who were not "advancing" music but instead refining and making it more perfect.  Another example of this phenomenon - Shakespeare.  He was so unoriginal that  some of his plays are REWRITES.  But he is also the greatest playwright/poet of the English language.  This basic fact - that art is a meaningful language connected to and not severed from the past - has been absolutely forgotten in all the modern era.

BTW the mention of John Cage is appropriate to this.  That is a particularly disgusting example of the hypocrisy of someone who is a complete phony.    He is not really a composer at all as far as I know.  But no one in intellectual circles is aware of that because absolutely anyone today can be a modernistic composer simply by claiming to be one.   He started off as a Dadaist, and applied those principles of artistic anarchy and nihilism - which were abandoned by the surrealists as no longer useful for creating anything meaningful - to music. 

Right. I remember back when I had lost all balance and was so confused by having strapped myself into a straitjacket, a teacher of mine advised me: "Don't try to write the masterpiece every time, just write what comes to you; if there is any Beethoven in there (pointing at my chest) it will come out anyway". 

That didn't help then unfortunately, but it was good advice and something that should be impressed upon every student of composition, instead of extolling other people's techniques and pseudo-revolutions, thus inviting students to become apes really, instead of encouraging them to express themselves (well they do but only in so many words, not by curriculum). 

@Another User said:

BTW the mention of John Cage is appropriate to this.  That is a particularly disgusting example of the hypocrisy of someone who is a complete phony.    He is not really a composer at all as far as I know.  But no one in intellectual circles is aware of that because absolutely anyone today can be a modernistic composer simply by claiming to be one.   He started off as a Dadaist, and applied those principles of artistic anarchy and nihilism - which were abandoned by the surrealists as no longer useful for creating anything meaningful - to music.

Hey MikeZaz - how you doing mate. Good to to see you here after so long. Fantastic. How's Trevor mate? Alright?

Didn't I mention to you the last time that you talk fucking shyte. Well you're still talking fucking shyte Mike. Good to hear from you again mate. Keep up the good work. :) 

@William said:

With tonal music, you are naked before the world and your competitors are Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn, Mahler, etc. With atonalism, you have many places to hide and no competition because there are no masters of atonal music.  Just "pioneers" who went forward alone into their brave new world, leaving all the audiences in concert halls behind.  Because in the opinion of these composers audiences are too stupid to understand their great music.

With this I have to disagree on multiple levels. There are, in my opinion, composers who definitely deserve to be labeled masters of atonal music - not merely because of they absolutely mind-numbing (meaningful) compositional virtuosity and technical polish  - Schoenberg and Berg coming immediately to mind as most "egregious" examples, with Schoenberg especially displaying equal mastery in both his tonal and atonal idioms - but also because of the absolutely sublime beauty of their best work. In my experience as a listener (and not merely as an analyst), Schoenbergs Variations for Orchestra Op.31 or Berg's Wozzeck rank among most profound and moving works ever to have been put on paper by human hand. It is true, however, that this music does take some effort - I certainly needed some time of "accomodation" of my listening apparatus to begin to respond to the qualities of this works - the rewards were, however, immense.

I don't think that modern composers generally consider the public to be stupid - I most certainly know that these two didn't. It is one thing to consider the public to be too stupid to comprehend something, and another thing to insist on the necessity of changing listening perspectives and habits as a necessary prerequisite to appreciate something.

I also don't believe that somebody finding a section from a Beethoven symphony attached to a commercial "pretty" or "pleasant" has arrived at an understanding of that music in any meaningful sense.       

@mikezaz_27157 said:

I usually like to know what I'm talking about before I insult people

You just contradicted yourself. 

 Your entire post is ignorant and arrogant.  Why do you call someone a "layman" whom you know nothing about?  You know nothing about me or what I do.  What are you? What do you do?  Besides come onto forums where a simple discussion of music is taking place and act superior?   People here should be able to discuss orchestration and composition and composers without somebody insulting them.

I am obviously aware that the motif was extensively and elaborately used by Beethoven in the 5th symphony.  It is famous for its symphonic development.  It is also famous for not having longer "melodies" or themes in its main movements as usually defined  - complete, longer phrases which develop within themselves.  It uses extremely simplified motifs which are brilliantly developed.  No one would argue with this obvious statement so it is equally obvious you are trying to be argumentative as well as insulting.   

One other thing - just because something is "old news" doesn't mean it isn't worth mentioning.   People often ignore things that are "old news."  

One more irritating post from this guy and I am out of here.  I am not trying to insult people, just discuss things with the other interesting people here which is enjoyable and stimulating, but when it becomes arrogance and insults like this mike zaz  it is no longer enjoyable. 

Jasensmith,

Just for the record, George Soros is sitting out this election cycle.  He was quoted in the NY TImes as saying, "When there's a landslide, I get out of the way."  All in all, I'm glad that the election is almost over, and that this thread is back discussing music.

Dear Forum Members,

please don't make me close yet another thread. Stick to a friendly tone, and stay on topic. Thanks!

@William said:

I am obviously aware that the motif was extensively and elaborately used by Beethoven in the 5th symphony.  It is famous for its symphonic development.  It is also famous for not having longer "melodies" or themes in its main movements as usually defined  - complete, longer phrases which develop within themselves.  It uses extremely simplified motifs which are brilliantly developed.  No one would argue with this obvious statement so it is equally obvious you are trying to be argumentative as well as insulting.  

Exactly. The first movement of the 5th is completely athematic. There is no sense whatsoever in widening the notion of themes to encompass motifs, as it blurs the difference between compositional procedures of formal construction which necessarily stem from using short motivic fragments as building blocs of large-scale movements on the one side, and using "complete, longer phrases which develop within themselves", that is, themes, on the other side. F.e., there is no way Berlioz could have used the same methods of formal construction as Beethoven in the 1st movement of the 5th to construct the 1st movement of Symphonie Fantastique - precisely for the reason that he uses full-fledged themes as building blocks, not short motivic fragments.

@PaulR said:

Hey MikeZaz - how you doing mate. Good to to see you here after so long. Fantastic. How's Trevor mate? Alright?

Didn't I mention to you the last time that you talk fucking shyte. Well you're still talking fucking shyte Mike. Good to hear from you again mate. Keep up the good work. :) 

Hi there, I didn't know we had talked before 😊 Who is Trevor?

Anyway, I'm sorry if my post came off as angry, it wasn't directed at you actually. William was merely incorrect on a number of things and I wanted to clear them up.

In regards to the topic at hand, they even use themes (Less so There Will Be Blood, but they're still there)

@mikezaz_27157 said:

I usually like to know what I'm talking about before I insult people

You just contradicted yourself. 

 Your entire post is ignorant and arrogant.  Why do you call someone a "layman" whom you know nothing about?  You know nothing about me or what I do.  What are you? What do you do?  Besides come onto forums where a simple discussion of music is taking place and act superior?   People here should be able to discuss orchestration and composition and composers without somebody insulting them.

I am obviously aware that the motif was extensively and elaborately used by Beethoven in the 5th symphony.  It is famous for its symphonic development.  It is also famous for not having longer "melodies" or themes in its main movements as usually defined  - complete, longer phrases which develop within themselves.  It uses extremely simplified motifs which are brilliantly developed.  No one would argue with this obvious statement so it is equally obvious you are trying to be argumentative as well as insulting.   

One other thing - just because something is "old news" doesn't mean it isn't worth mentioning.   People often ignore things that are "old news."  

One more irritating post from this guy and I am out of here.  I am not trying to insult people, just discuss things with the other interesting people here which is enjoyable and stimulating, but when it becomes arrogance and insults like this mike zaz  it is no longer enjoyable. 

Apologies for the angry tone then. I actually didn't really care about the Theme discussion, since it's mostly an issue of semantics. We both clearly know how Beethoven's 5th works, it's just a matter of whether we have the same definition of Theme. I wasn't trying to lecture you that Beethoven used Motif, I was trying to explain that a Motif can also be a Theme, in the way that Bananas can also be Fruits, and in Beethoven's 5th I would say that it is. 

Here is a quick internet definition: http://www.music.vt.edu/musicdictionary/textt/Theme.html

Again, I also acknowledge that many would consider the 5th to be "unmelodic," especially using more conservative definitions of melody.

Anyway, we're completely on the same page in that regard, and to argue further about what exactly a "Theme" is would probably be pointless.

I also didn't call  you a Layman, I simply recommended a book for that target audience so as not to take up too much of your time, as well as a more technical book if you were so inclined. It's a really good book! I wouldn't consider myself a layman and I got something out of it.

It's true my post was arrogant in some regards, but so was your ignorant dismissal of John Cage. I notice you don't have any response, which isn't surprising. Some things are opinions (whether a piece of music is good or not), some things are gray areas (what exactly a theme is) and some things are just flat out untrue (whether John Cage is a nihilist, or whether he actually is a composer). Only the last one really pisses me off 😊

I don't know why you and Paul seem to think that I've posted irritatingly in this forum before, but maybe I have? I apologize for that if so. 

To the mods: Let me know if this is polite enough 😊

@goran c said:

Exactly. The first movement of the 5th is completely athematic. There is no sense whatsoever in widening the notion of themes to encompass motifs, as it blurs the difference between compositional procedures of formal construction which necessarily stem from using short motivic fragments as building blocs of large-scale movements on the one side, and using "complete, longer phrases which develop within themselves", that is, themes, on the other side. F.e., there is no way Berlioz could have used the same methods of formal construction as Beethoven in the 1st movement of the 5th to construct the 1st movement of Symphonie Fantastique - precisely for the reason that he uses full-fledged themes as building blocks, not short motivic fragments.

I guess you can choose to have "Melody" and "Theme" be synonymous if you like, but that's not how I use the word. There is certainly some debate about what exactly "Theme" means. Here is another definition from a music dictionary:

TheEncyclopédie Fasquelle (Michel 1958–61) defines a theme as "Any element, motif, or small musical piece that has given rise to some variation becomes thereby a theme."

I would certainly say the 5th qualifies in that regard, wouldn't you?

Well!... I can't leave you guys unsupervised for a few hours and there you are at each others' throats again.... SImply incorrigible aren't they Dietz?...

@mikezaz I don't exactly understand what you suggest I did by looking into Rochberg by siting the Haydn example, unless you were referring to collage works (imitation?) such as he, Berio, and others wrote. If that is the case and you disapprove we are in agreement; the only person that quotes successfully in my view is Crumb.

You must be joking or need to elaborate when you say that soundtracks during Herrmann's time were anything like today's garbage. We are talking about film music from the '40s to the mid '70s and going backwards it encapsulates much of Goldsmith's, Legrand's, Barry's, Rota's, North's, Delerue's, Jarre's, Mancini's, Fielding's, Bernstein's, Rosenman's, Addison's, Tiomkin's, Rozsa's, Steiner's, and of course Herrmann's own, careers. Unless I'm mistaken this is close to a pantheon, unless you mean that most film music has always been garbage, which is a different discussion to this one.

You are right in saying that Beethoven's 5th is unbelievably thematic throughout including the 1st movement in question; the second subject is almost Brahmsian after all; but surely you realized that the misunderstanding was purely a semantic one among the contributors here; however, the record is straight now and nobody disagrees.

Yes, some of what Williams is saying is old news indeed and to recommend Ross' book to anybody is fine as it is well thought out with a great range. However, to use the word  l a y m a n  on him is just too much for a guy with his great output, both in quality and quantity, and I fully understand his wanting out of this discussion and I'm actually surprised at the restraint in his post... The principle of a lot of what he says is still latent these days in much of the academic world. 

And no! Tonality is not the norm everywhere and atonality is very much alive! Let's procure most composition competitions' finalists' works and compare. The fact that these works are not Boulezian in toto and somewhat freer in pitch construction and allocation does not make them tonal works.

Taruskin is a formidable figure and I don't know his specific view of Cage, but he is not the exact opposite of a nihilist. In fact, he is the epitome, the dictionary definition of a musical nihilist.

Best wishes,

E.

P.S.: There have been some new postings since I started writing this (damn telephone) and some things have been sorted out, I am glad.

My "ignorant dismissal"  - thanks for mentioning it that way.  Apparently "mikezazz" is a candle-carrying, robe-donning, gibberish-chanting Disciple of the Great Annointed One, John Cage.  And I was insulting by DARING to criticize....    Him.   

But you did apologize, and so I accept that.  And may I offer in response my deepest, and most sincere apologies to both you - a Disciple, and..... He.   I hope you can picture the sincere genuflections and obeisances I am now offering before the computer. 

Also, since you wonder how old I am - as if that has anything to do with this (though it apparently does in your brain) ---- I am over the hill.  I am ancient.  Why, I am so old that I can remember when there was NO MIDI.  In fact, I can remember when there was NO DIGITAL EXCEPT FOR HANDS AND FEET.  So of course, my opinion must be taken with a grain of salt both for my not being a Disciple as well as my being so shockingly aged.  

And now sir, I am retiring from this thread and leaving it to you to continue enlightening others who have follow into the darkness.  I think I'll go out onto the porch and sit in the rocker a spell, and then I'll go and take a little nap.  And then, why, I may go into the parlor and have me a mint julep and play on the ol' pump organ a spell. Yessir, that's what I'm a fixin to do.