@William said:

No composer who ever wrote a good melody did it by following the rules like cookbook.

Well. Very rarely composers write melodies having NOT an origin from elsewhere. Perhaps this is just what one means with "cookbooks".

Let's say you're John Williams taking Strauss melodies from "Death and Transfiguration" to make your Superman love theme "Can You Read My Mind."

Everything comes from somewhere else. Analysis after the fact can determine relationships but not determine "what makes a hit." Otherwise, we would all be out of work.

Clark

@clarkcontrol said:

Everything comes from somewhere else. Clark

From my perspective, every I do is derivative, right down to brushing my teeth.

In a nutshell, yes.

However, when one applies these rules (like a cookbook) Consciously to the creative process then the result will sound derivative. Sure, it looks good on paper but...

When one has totally absorbed the grammar the rules become Unconscious and creation can flow naturally, still governed by rules but not hindered by them. The work can then be transported beyond simple craftsmanship into art that transcends (or redefines) genre.

Perfect grammar will never guarantee poetry.

Clark

Great composers create their own grammArs. It takes some time for the audience to learn it. When other composer start using those new grammArs, what we have are cliches or even clones (of John Williams e.g.).

"Perfect grammar will never guarantee poetry. " - clarkcontrol

Yes, that's exactly what I meant to suggest. All the analysis of shapes of melodies in the world won't make a good one since you can do a bad one with the same shape. It is completely naive - in fact, laughable - to think otherwise. Though many forms of modern atonal composition allow composers to pretend this by doing this very thing - aping the outer shell of an idea. Not the inner reality, which is fundamentally mysterious.

In pathetically old fashioned music - like what I write - YOU CAN'T DO THIS AT ALL. Everybody realizes it, instantly, if you are a fake. But with modern music - you can get away with MURDER. [8o|]

"But with modern music - you can get away with MURDER."

Any examples?

It happens all the time.

I hear it on the bandstand at every gig I play. Rock, pop, country, even jazz. Sometimes I hear it from guys that have won Grammys. I hear it from me. Musicians stop thinking and listening and the life just leaves the music.

They're playing the right notes, mind you, but they switch on the "autopilot" and the spirit leaves and the bottom drops out of the energy, thus "aping the outer shell of an idea."

This makes it Very difficult to endure. As a free-lancer, I get the calls because I can carry people who do this, who believe that nobody can tell if they're distracted, thinking of what they have to do tomorrow...

But they DO know that with lesser sidemen surrounding them s**t falls apart. "Hmmm... why do things seem to groove so much better when Clark is on the gig?"

"Why does the singer sound so much more in tune? Could it be because I've hired Clark? Nah. A piano player really can't affect these things."

Yes I can.

It happens all the time.

A great majority of musicians who listen to this live music don't hear these subtleties. But they DO know when things are really clicking.

Think about it:

Some of the greatest studio musicians get famous for playing ridiculously simple rhythm parts on a Steely Dan recording, let's say. Why is that? What is so mysterious about playing quarter notes on a hihat?

"I'd do that too if I could get triple scale!" an ignorant musician would say.

Clark

Great post Clark. All very true. Those great session guys put magic into every pulse and know exactly what they're doing every moment.

I agree with that, Clark.

lgrohn, most - not all of course -of 20th century musical composition.

@clarkcontrol said:

It happens all the time.

I hear it on the bandstand at every gig I play. Rock, pop, country, even jazz. Sometimes I hear it from guys that have won Grammys. I hear it from me. Musicians stop thinking and listening and the life just leaves the music.

The question was about composing, not about playing... And I guess about atonal music!

(William: "In pathetically old fashioned music - like what I write - YOU CAN'T DO THIS AT ALL. Everybody realizes it, instantly, if you are a fake. But with modern music - you can get away with MURDER.")

So let me ask again: Any examples of this?

My post applies to all styles of music.

The things I mention above all deal with real-time composition. Improvisation is integral to the nature of those examples. Real time composition with very narrow parameters in order to illuminate in a more extreme way the nature of what I describe.

I felt that by using these extreme examples of quarter notes on a hihat, etc., we could eliminate (at least for a theoretical discussion) subjective qualifications as to what is art and what isn't.

In addition, my post also points out that the notes could be EXACTLY the same and merely the execution can invalidate or validate these intangible qualities we are talking about.

In regards to atonal music, your best bet is to go to any university and attend "Contemporary Music" concerts. More specifically, at the University of North Texas (my alma mater) that would be concerning the NOVA ensemble (atonal) or the CEMI (computer) music program. In general, any Ivory Tower is a perfect place for one to find substandard works from both faculty and graduate students that academically succeed on one level but fall short of expressing that magic.

Perhaps William may have had something specific in mind. My point is that we don't need to be specific because

It happens all the time.

Clark

@clarkcontrol said:

In regards to atonal music, your best bet is to go to any university and attend "Contemporary Music" concerts. More specifically, at the University of North Texas (my alma mater) that would be concerning the NOVA ensemble (atonal) or the CEMI (computer) music program. In general, any Ivory Tower is a perfect place for one to find substandard works from both faculty and graduate students that academically succeed on one level but fall short of expressing that magic.

Maybe the real problem is that in USA the only place (almost) where contemporary music is created and presented are just those semi-professional concerts. Maybe the commercial interests anad bad taste of the audience have spoiled contemporaty music in USA? What a pity. In Europe the situation is quite different, very much more positive.

I believe you are correct. Unfortunately, America does not support its arts very well at all. Government money has slowed to a trickle, so any music that is worth doing well requires a large market to drive its excellence and attract talent.

Film music to a certain degree is trending toward less traditional tonality, though it is diluted to a great extant, and so therefore it suffers in quality as well.

It would be nice to see a renaissance of sorts through more "Planet of the Apes" type scores. It seems that everything has become so middle of the road here. I'm glad the situation over by you is more fertile.

Clark

Has there been in America any other cases of stealing music for films in addition of Kubric stealing music of Ligeti for Space 2001?