@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.

Hi Errikos,

I brought up Rochberg because had a very dramatic turn later on in his life, from strict atonality to Beethoven style tonality. It's very interesting and very dramatic. He  was literally "writing like Beethoven." I thought you would be interested in this - I certainly was, when I found out.

Here is why I argue most film music from the era of Herrman was garbage: There were sooooooooooooooooooooooooo many films being made then that have been forgotten. Even a lot of the films that we remember culturally have awkward or kitschy music, but if you've ever watched some of the movies that haven't survived in the collective memory: hoo boy.

Herrman himself was of course the best film composer of all time, and probably remains as such.  And he himself thought most of the music in films was garbage (if you really want me to cite that, I can, but I'll have to dig it up).

Actually I think the best film composer of all time was Stanley Kubrick, haha. In the second that it took him to fire Alex North, he wrote the greatest film score of all time. 

As you probably know by now (via your PS), I do realize the Beethoven/Theme issue was semantic. 

I apologize for using the "L" word. I just wanted to make the distinction that the Ross book is clearly not academic, but apparently that got lost in the way, and it seemed like I was using it at William. (and let's be honest here, I was talking down to William: I was angry at him for talking with so much confidence and such a dismissive attitude about things that he didn't have the knowledge to accurately talk about). I come from, I guess you could say, Angrier forums, where we really get on people's cases for not knowing their shit. But I shouldn't have resorted to my pseudo ad hominem, so I apologize for that.

As for whether tonality is the norm... well, I'm still in school, and I can say with a great deal of confidence that it is the norm here in Academia on the west coast of the US (again, with the exception of electronic music programs, which are still clinging with rigor mortis to the 1950s and 60s). Unless of course you're talking about tonality in the traditional common practice sense, in which case it definitely isn't (although again, this is why I recommended Rochberg to you - he made a dramatic shift towards common practice tonality late in life - so did, to a lesser and more ambiguous extent, Penderecki, who now writes like Bruckner). 

In other words, there has been a wide realization in both "western music literature" or "contemporary classical" or whatever word you want to use, that atonality was fiercely alienating to basically everyone who wasn't in the club. Of course there was always a resistant school of tonality throughout the 20th century, but in the 60s, 70s and 80s it started to really really pick up steam. By the 90s and 00s, Academia had caught on, with a few notable exceptions (I made sure to mention that stodgy old place Columbia). 

Now, you'll have to forgive my America-centrism, because I'm a lot less familiar with the narrative in Europe. Of course we still have the iron stronghold of the new complexity, but those guys are just so oooolld. They're like dinosaurs now. I saw one of those guys give a lecture and man, he totally knows he's fighting a losing battle. And if you want a great example of a very respected living European composer, now very old and in Academia, and who is very tonal, look for Louis Andriessen, specifically the piece De Staat, if you haven't heard it. I'm gonna feel silly if you're like, Dutch or something, but forgive me cause I have no idea where you're from or what you already know.

Atonality is alive, it's true. But it no longer has the force or the entrenchment in Academia that it did through the 80s. Times have changed.  

If you're in Europe, I'm sorry things are a little bit bleaker there - in America we've had the benefit of minimalism and downtown music to light a few tonal fires. But perhaps more significantly we had the benefit of the Harry Partch -> Ben Johnston trajectory, where basically people became sincerely interested in exploring new ways to achieve fresh tonality through expanded Just intonation. If you haven't heard Ben Johnston's Amazing Grace quartet I really really recommend it, it had a huge impact on me. Expanded just intonation basically makes tonality feel fresh in a way that I imagine dodacephony felt to those early modernists. I can't find a youtube link for the Johnston quartet, but you can hear a preview of it on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Crossings-Ascent-String-Quartet-Amazing/dp/B001U8ALIC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1288731887&sr=1-1

 In terms of context, Johnston, like Pendercki and Rochberg, realized that the "rip it up and start again" ethos of the modernists had run it's course, and it was time to once again try to advance music in a more natural and less alienating way. I imagine that's why he chose such an accessible hymn to base his quartet around. 

I'm not sure why this view of Cage-as-nihilist is as apparently pervasive as it is. Maybe I shouldn't have been as hard on William for parroting it.

 Is it because he said "I have nothing to say and I'm saying it."? I know that's a very famous quote, but even that isn't nihilistic. After all, you can't just focus on the "nothing to say" - he's [i]saying[/i] it. He [i]cares[/i]. He not only cares, he cares a lot. He basically cares with a religious fervor. Hence the "scary purity" of Cage. 

4'33" is kind of dubiously famous, but even that piece, which feels like it's about negation, is actually about the opposite.  

Ok, here is the Wikipedia (I know, I know) view of Nihilism: Nihilism (pronounced /ˈnaɪ.əlɪzəm/ or /ˈniː.əlɪzəm/; from the Latin nihil, nothing) is the philosophical doctrine suggesting the negation of one or more meaningful aspects of life.

Cage's philosophy was more about the positiveness of empty space, if that makes sense. It goes quite a bit deeper, and I'm probably distorting with my simplification, but hopefully you can see how those two things differ. 

Do you think Feldman would have been such great friends with Cage, and have learned so much from him, if Cage was simply a nihilist? I don't think Morty would have put up with that shit. 

Maybe I'll bust out that Taruskin article and try to get some quotes for you all. Did you listen to the excerpts from Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano that I posted on the previous page? I'll post them again, because seeing those performed completely changed my opinion on Cage. Maybe you've heard the piece before.

@William said:

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.

John Cage was completely nuts. He wrote a lot of great music and a lot of terrible music. He had a lot of great ideas and a lot of awful ones. I love the Sonatas and Interludes, but those are the only works of his I love.

I am a card carrying member of the Morty Feldman fanclub, but that's about as close to Cage as I feel comfortable getting. Again, he was completely nuts.

I'm not so much defending Cage as I am explaining what he was about and why everything you think about him is basically dead wrong. 

I called it an ignortant dismissal because that's what it was. You were ignorant (IE saying things that are wrong as if they were fact) and dismissive (IE disregarding something). It's an awful combination.

I wanted to know how old you are because if you had gone to school for composition in the 70s or 80s, I could see why you'd have the viewpoints that you do. I'm sorry to hear that you're over the hill, and I'm glad you accept my apology for talking down to you. Keep in mind I still think you are 100% wrong, and I hope for your sake that you are still willing to educate yourself in spite of being "over the hill." It is not a matter of indoctrination, it is simply a matter of knowing what you're talking about.  I truly think you will get a lot out of the Alex Ross book (and so does Erikoss)

Keep in mind you apparently are respected on this forum, and that when you say things incorrectly, there will probably be a segment of the people reading who believe you. This is why open ignorance is so pernicious. I'm not necessarily saying you are an ignorant person, but I am absolutely going to say straight up and without apology that you are ignorant about many of the things being discussed recently in this thread. I don't see that as an insult, but rather as something I can demonstrate clearly and politely. 

@PaulR said:

 Herrmann was classically trained - he wasn't a rocker that got up one morning and decided to get into pictures.

Some of the best scores of recent years have been done by these people. See Paul Thomas Anderson's two latest films, There Will Be Blood and Punch Drunk Love. Two of the best scores of the decade done by two different "rockers who decided to get into pictures."

Film scoring in Herrman's day was 99% garbage, just as it is today. The good stuff is rare enough that you have to appreciate anything that comes along, and that means not being biased against how people got their start 😊

OK. Now that you've got down from your PATRONIZING PERCH - I'll tell you this once more.

The music to There Will be Blood is like someone that sounds like Sarah Palin thats just been captured and taken to a recording booth - and then tied down while someone with masochistic tendencies has then proceeded to scrape her a s s with  a cheese grater and the whole thing has been recorded and then called a FILM SCORE!!!

Forget all that. It's the film. The film is overrated crap. The problem with people is they think because the acting is absolutely brilliant then the film MUST be brilliant. When you can work all that out by - as you put it - sitting through endless crap from 1956 onwards then you can TALK! I AM NOT INTERESTED IN WHAT A COLLEGE LECTURER THINKS!!! College lecturers in music and filmscoring DON'T usually have my qualifications and usually talk shyte. Hell - what do the judges of the Oscar awards actually know about Cinematography just as one instance - never mind 3rd rate college lecturers.

So please - read the the subject of this thread.

Good evening.

@PaulR said:

 Herrmann was classically trained - he wasn't a rocker that got up one morning and decided to get into pictures.

Some of the best scores of recent years have been done by these people. See Paul Thomas Anderson's two latest films, There Will Be Blood and Punch Drunk Love. Two of the best scores of the decade done by two different "rockers who decided to get into pictures."

Film scoring in Herrman's day was 99% garbage, just as it is today. The good stuff is rare enough that you have to appreciate anything that comes along, and that means not being biased against how people got their start 😊

OK. Now that you've got down from your PATRONIZING PERCH - I'll tell you this once more.

The music to There Will be Blood is like someone that sounds like Sarah Palin thats just been captured and taken to a recording booth - and then tied down while someone with masochistic tendencies has then proceeded to scrape her a s s with  a cheese grater and the whole thing has been recorded and then called a FILM SCORE!!!

Forget all that. It's the film. The film is overrated crap. The problem with people is they think because the acting is absolutely brilliant then the film MUST be brilliant. When you can work all that out by - as you put it - sitting through endless crap from 1956 onwards then you can TALK! I AM NOT INTERESTED IN WHAT A COLLEGE LECTURER THINKS!!! College lecturers in music and filmscoring DON'T usually have my qualifications and usually talk shyte. Hell - what do the judges of the Oscar awards actually know about Cinematography just as one instance - never mind 3rd rate college lecturers.

So please - read the the subject of this thread.

Good evening.

Well first off, you didn't tell me who Trevor was! :) 

Anyway, now we're having a conversation. Isn't this nice?  Well, almost anyway.

For the benefit of people who haven't seen There Will Be Blood, I'll post a little bit of the music for you. Unfortunately I can't show it with the film (copyrights and all that), but here is a Cue on Youtube that has been reedited (kind of cheesily) to shots of the film:

But of course, talking about the thread topic line - does There Will Be Blood have a theme? Difficult question, but if it did I would imagine it would be this piece right here:

I understand it might not be everyone's cup of tea, but I like it a lot. I wonder, do you have a problem with dissonant music in general, or just music like this, and if you could explain further what you don't like about it? For context, the music is really the focus of this scene in the film, which is almost completely without sound and is I think like, the first scene in the movie or something like that?

To me, the music is meant to evoke the kind of chilled slippery misanthropic nature of the character and to give a kind of foreboding feeling for the chilled slippery misanthropic journey the character is about to take.

Punch Drunk Love was the other film I mentioned, which has a kind of kitschy waltz theme where it's hard to tell if it's used ironically or sincerely. Of course, you can say that about the movie as a whole, so it fits. 

I choose to look at punch drunk love as being pretty sincere all the way through, so I treat the theme the same way.

It's also very interesting because part of the theme ties in directly to a harmonium that Adam Sandler's character finds early in the movie (it's also striking that the movie has no music until Sandler finds this harmonium, which coincides with him meeting the woman he'll eventually fall in the love with), and it's sort of implied that the theme is something that Sandler's character thought up. I'm sure this has been done in movies before, but I can't think of an example.

By the way, I think the real musical highlight of the movie doesn't have anything to do with themes, but if you're curious, it can be found in this video:

If you've ever known a neurotic person in an uncomfortable situation, or been such a person yourself, I think  you can identify with this cue 😊

It also seems to me to be a reference to John Cage's prepared piano work, as well as maybe some of Henry Cowell's extended piano works. And if you've been following the Cage discussion in this thread, you'll know why I like that 

@mikezaz_27157 said:

Hi Errikos,

I brought up Rochberg because had a very dramatic turn later on in his life, from strict atonality to Beethoven style tonality. It's very interesting and very dramatic. He  was literally "writing like Beethoven." I thought you would be interested in this - I certainly was, when I found out.

The only Rochberg I know are a couple of symphonies - "early" works, unlike what you're suggesting, but I thought the oboe and violin concerti were late enough in the day and they don't sound like Beethoven to me at all... Perhaps you can point me to something else?

Here is why I argue most film music from the era of Herrman was garbage: There were sooooooooooooooooooooooooo many films being made then that have been forgotten. Even a lot of the films that we remember culturally have awkward or kitschy music, but if you've ever watched some of the movies that haven't survived in the collective memory: hoo boy.

Still, that doesn't negate my argument, it just frames it into an obvious point. Most artistic and pseudo-artistic output is hoo-boy especially in the last 100 years. Perhaps you will agree with my sentiments if I add the term "relatively". You don't have to dig up Herrmann, I have the quote myself, and I also know how he felt about the majority of 'serious' music while we're at it. 

Actually I think the best film composer of all time was Stanley Kubrick, haha. In the second that it took him to fire Alex North, he wrote the greatest film score of all time. 

I thought he also fired David Shire from that assignment.

I apologize for using the "L" word. I just wanted to make the distinction that the Ross book is clearly not academic, but apparently that got lost in the way, and it seemed like I was using it at William. (and let's be honest here, I was talking down to William: I was angry at him for talking with so much confidence and such a dismissive attitude about things that he didn't have the knowledge to accurately talk about). I come from, I guess you could say, Angrier forums, where we really get on people's cases for not knowing their ***. But I shouldn't have resorted to my pseudo ad hominem, so I apologize for that.

I thought so myself (that's what you sounded like) and you confirmed it; you are still a student. I remember my bygone student days (although I'm rather a few years away from the rocking chair) and I was twice as vituperative as I have been on this forum, five times as patronizing as you have been (at least you realized it, I wouldn't back in those days), and most importantly, ten times more uninformed and immature and know-it-all and so was most everyone else to a point (the institution keeps vacillating between the top 20-40 in the world, it's not like I was in a dump). Hence, I know where you're coming from, but I also know where you are going if you are as intelligent as you appear. Let me affirm here that I also know my shit, and I was a student before the days of Wiki (you know you know) and YouTube, when we had to read books, lots of them!... You won't accept this now, but your real knowledge, aesthetics, and sensibilities, await you long after you graduate... University is not there these days to give you knowledge; it is there to challenge you, and to make you aware of tools and their use in your subsequent search for knowledge - if you're up to it...

Having said that, Cage never interested me enough to write a thesis on him, but I have (sadly) listened to countless works of his, read Paul Griffiths' book on him (not just his entry in several compedia), several of his 'acrostic's and other writings, had a look at a couple of his interviews and a few of my teachers had met him personally. If our opinions differ, it is certainly not due to me not knowing my shit...

However, I refer you to the Oxford Companion to Philosophy's definition of 'nihilism' (not Wiki): "The extreme view that there is no justification for values and, in particular, no justification for morality. It is sometimes used to mean the active rejection of and attack on such values."

If you substitute the terms 'values' and 'morality' for 'musical systems' and 'tonality', you find Cage. Of all the "revolutionaries", he was the one that broke with tradition the most. That, in combination with his superficial Zen beliefs of "everything is beautiful", "shedding the illusion of a substantial self", and "no objectivity correct and definitive perspective on anything"... What else do you need for musical nihilism, when music, among other things, is an intrinsic system of hierarchies?...

As for whether tonality is the norm... well, I'm still in school, and I can say with a great deal of confidence that it is the norm here in Academia on the west coast of the US (again, with the exception of electronic music programs, which are still clinging with rigor mortis to the 1950s and 60s). Unless of course you're talking about tonality in the traditional common practice sense, in which case it definitely isn't (although again, this is why I recommended Rochberg to you - he made a dramatic shift towards common practice tonality late in life - so did, to a lesser and more ambiguous extent, Penderecki, who now writes like Bruckner).

I know how Penderecki writes since I own quite a few of his works and having met him personally. Of course I don't mean tonality as Mendelssohn understood it (my! do you guys in the west coast believe you are the exclusive Mecca of knowledge these days?...) I again say, do your research, find 15-20 'big' international composition competitions (most directly related to institutions), and try to find the recordings of the finalists. Then we can resume our discussion.

You don't have to quote Louis Andriessen to me, I knew about him when you were still in grade school, and I can quote you quite a few others, but that's not the point... The point is, dinosaurs and not, who are the current "champions" in composition; not what will happen in the future... Who is big today? You'll find that 90% are atonalists...

He cares. He not only cares, he cares a lot. He basically cares with a religious fervor. Hence the "scary purity" of Cage. That whole phrase is scary!...

4'33" is kind of dubiously famous, but even that piece, which feels like it's about negation, is actually about the opposite. You really need to delve deeper into Cage... Then again, maybe you need to get as far away as possible...

Cage's philosophy was more about the positiveness of empty space, if that makes sense. It goes quite a bit deeper, and I'm probably distorting with my simplification, but hopefully you can see how those two things differ. Now you are donning the robe William was talking about, there is nothing academic in this phrase, just wishy-washy puerile mysticism.

Do you think Feldman would have been such great friends with Cage, and have learned so much from him, if Cage was simply a nihilist? I don't think Morty would have put up with that ***. I'm not saying Cage was propagating 'nihilism' per se, I am saying the practical applications of what he believed onto music produce 'nihilism'.

Maybe I'll bust out that Taruskin article and try to get some quotes for you all. Did you listen to the excerpts from Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano that I posted on the previous page? I'll post them again, because seeing those performed completely changed my opinion on Cage. Maybe you've heard the piece before. Now you are beginning to suspect that perhaps you are not taking us by the hand out of the Platonic caves of our ignorance. Yes, we have heard the piece before, many others as well, some we have actually performed ourselves(!!), etc.

First of all, I apologize for the formatting of this post, I really can't figure this forum software out.

Secondly, I was hesitant to admit that I was a student before because I imagined it would add a lot of baggage to your view of me that would in turn cause you to read more into my posts than are actually there (maybe in the same way that I did to William....?? ooh the shoe is on the other foot now, isn't it!) I'll try to correct these as they come along, but suffice to say your view of me isn't very accurate :)

The only Rochberg I know are a couple of symphonies - "early" works, unlike what you're suggesting, but I thought the oboe and violin concerti were late enough in the day and they don't sound like Beethoven to me at all... Perhaps you can point me to something else?

I won't be able to link you to it, but the 3rd Quartet is when Rochberg begins to explore Beethovenisms. He isn't doing totally common practice stuff at this point, but he was basically a tonal composer from then on.

Still, that doesn't negate my argument, it just frames it into an obvious point. Most artistic and pseudo-artistic output is hoo-boy especially in the last 100 years. Perhaps you will agree with my sentiments if I add the term "relatively". You don't have to dig up Herrmann, I have the quote myself, and I also know how he felt about the majority of 'serious' music while we're at it. 

Of course we're all familiar with the idea that 90% of everything is crap (or 99% or whatever you choose to believe). My point is I truly think the % now isn't really any different than it was back then, but you are of course free to disagree. I can't imagine we'll be able to get much further with this argument without taking a lot of time, and it boils largely down to opinion anyway.

I thought he also fired David Shire from that assignment.

No idea, but I think it was North who had the 100% completed score (you can even buy it on CD now)

Ok This next bit will take some unpacking:

Let me affirm here that I also know my ***, and I was a student before the days of Wiki (you know you know) and YouTube, when we had to read books, lots of them!... You won't accept this now, but your real knowledge, aesthetics, and sensibilities, await you long after you graduate... 

First of all, remember I never said you didn't know your shit (I'm pretty sure that was clearly directed at William, and even then only in regards to the subjects at hand, but I'm not going to go back and check). I quite like books, so I don't know what that whole thing is about, and I completely agree with everything else you said.

University is not there these days to give you knowledge; it is there to challenge you, and to make you aware of tools and their use in your subsequent search for knowledge - if you're up to it...

This is a little bit more complicated, but I think you're generally correct. Of course there are many less idealistic views of universities. You still haven't told me if you're European or American, but suffice to say many American Universities are less about challenge in an intellectual sense or "learning how to think" or whatever, than about preparing for the job market. I'm sure you already know this, however, and we don't really need to discuss it.

Having said that, Cage never interested me enough to write a thesis on him, but I have (sadly) listened to countless works of his, read Paul Griffiths' book on him (not just his entry in several compedia), several of his 'acrostic's and other writings, had a look at a couple of his interviews and a few of my teachers had met him personally. If our opinions differ, it is certainly not due to me not knowing my ***...

I'm sorry if you thought I was accusing you of not knowing your shit. You seem to be very educated and informed, if maybe a little hostile (which is fine by me - recall how I entered the thread - hostility can be fun, as we both seem to know).  It was William who I accused, and I still stand by it.

However, I refer you to the Oxford Companion to Philosophy's definition of 'nihilism' (not Wiki): "The extreme view that there is no justification for values and, in particular, no justification for morality. It is sometimes used to mean the active rejection of and attack on such values."

If you substitute the terms 'values' and 'morality' for 'musical systems' and 'tonality', you find Cage.

This is spotty logic. After all, if we do what you say and create that sentence:

"The extreme view that there is no justification for musical systems and, in particular, no justification for tonality. It is sometimes used to mean the active rejection of and attack on such values."

We're still not talking about Cage, but we're also not talking about Nihilism, and it's also just a bad sentence. Values and morality are too different from musical systems and tonality to do the exercise you're trying to do here.

 Of all the "revolutionaries", he was the one that broke with tradition the most.

This is probably true - at least he did it the most famously.

That, in combination with his superficial Zen beliefs of "everything is beautiful", "shedding the illusion of a substantial self", and "no objectivity correct and definitive perspective on anything"... What else do you need for musical nihilism, when music, among other things, is an intrinsic system of hierarchies?...

Well, again just as with the "Themes" discussion we were having earlier in this thread, we're only talking about semantics now. Suffice to say "accidentally creating musical nihilism," which is your charge, is very different than "being an nihilist." Hopefully that is clear. Of course, I don't regard Cage's works as being accidentally nihilist anyway, but that would take longer to explain and I'll only do it if you really think it's worth the time.

I know how Penderecki writes since I own quite a few of his works and having met him personally.

That's cool, he seems like a nice guy.

Of course I don't mean tonality as Mendelssohn understood it (my! do you guys in the west coast believe you are the exclusive Mecca of knowledge these days?...)

Haha this is where you're starting to assume things about me. One definition of tonality refers to common practice tonality, and if you read through the thread again, you can see why I thought we might be using the same word to mean different things.

Recall 1) I don't know anything about you, including how you might want to use certain words

2) In the short time I've been in this thread, I've had about a billion semantic arguments with people because, lets face it, certain musical terms are vague.

I didn't want to imply anything about you, I just wanted to make sure we were on the same page. 

I again say, do your research, find 15-20 'big' international composition competitions (most directly related to institutions), and try to find the recordings of the finalists. Then we can resume our discussion.

By this definition, the Pulitzer prize reflects the important developments of art music in general, which I think we both know it doesn't. Who ends up winning a prize certainly says [i]something[/i] about the state of a system, but judges and prizes and the lot are historically very conservative, and thus prone to be a few years behind the curve, if they aren't just totally off the mark entirely (as the Pulitzer folks usually are). 

You don't have to quote Louis Andriessen to me, I knew about him when you were still in grade school, and I can quote you quite a few others, but that's not the point... 

Again, please don't read any animosity into my post that wasn't there. I made sure to explicitly state that I don't know who you are or what you know. If we don't lay out these road posts of common names and terms and try to get on the same page, we're bound to wind up in semantic conflicts, or arguing about things that we both agree on.  That's all I was trying to do, and that's why I used a very famous and accessible example. It goes without saying that his fame and power as being one of the foremost composers of the world and a famous expert on Stravinsky to boot seems to support my point.

The point is, dinosaurs and not, who are the current "champions" in composition; not what will happen in the future... Who is big today? You'll find that 90% are atonalists...

I disagree, but again we have to be very specific about what we're talking about.

Are we talking about composition in terms of who fills concert halls? I think John C. Adams, Joan Tower, and all those types would be very surprised to find out they are atonalists (again, sorry for my America bias - you still haven't told me where you're from -of course, it's no different in Europe. Who is the champion in the concert hall, Ferneyhough or Part/Tavener? we both know the answer). 

Are we talking about who has success in academia? What kind of success and at what age?That's more difficult, I would again argue that times are changing and things aren't the way they were 10 years ago. I wish you wouldn't have glossed over my point about expanded just intonation, because I find that whole avenue very important - academia has realized that "rip it up and start again" doesn't work, and they're once again trying to build on what was there before. It might not be true of the "city fathers," but it's true of the majority of working professors. 

 I don't think you can dismiss my dinosaurs point. Boulez is still alive after all - but who cares? The same fate awaits Ferneyhough. They are a dying breed, that's the whole point. Everyone can feel it, including (I imagine) Ferneyhough. They still exist, and they still wield immense bureaucratic power (prizes and the like), but in real cultural terms they are toothless. 

You really need to delve deeper into Cage... Then again, maybe you need to get as far away as possible...

Again, you're assuming things about me. Student or not, I think I know at least as much about Cage as you (This is why I didn't want to say I was a student - this kind of thing always ends in a pissing match). I'm not going to say you're ignorant, you clearly know plenty, but don't assume that I am either. And of course, keep in mind that regardless of how much you've studied him, I've studied him much more recently :)

Now you are donning the robe William was talking about, there is nothing academic in this phrase, just wishy-washy puerile mysticism.

The idea of negative space comes from art, which I'm sure you know, and John Cage (like Feldman) was hugely influenced by the abstract expressionist painters, as well as the minimalist painters that followed. Negative space is a very concrete term - you might argue that saying negative space has a positive value (if you haven't already watched a very old Cage talk about traffic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcHnL7aS64Y - traffic being the negative space of city life, and he lays out his views about that) reeks of wishy washy mysticism,  and I'm not going to argue that Cage wasn't a mystic - but wait a second, don't mystics by definition believe in something? How can a mystic be a nihilist? Oh, but of course he isn't a real nihilist, he's just accidentally making musical nihilism (which is a completely different thing, even if it is true, but we'll get to that later in this post).

Again I am not donning any kind of robe. I wish you would believe me that I don't subscribe to Cage's views - at least not wholesale. I see in his ideas the same kind of value that I see in Satie's, but that doesn't mean I'm going to give up on Beethoven.

I'm not saying Cage was propagating 'nihilism' per se, I am saying the practical applications of what he believed onto music produce 'nihilism'.

Here we are at the heart of the matter, and uuggh this could take years to unpack. But I know what you're saying, and it's a reasonable view to have. I still maintain that it's wrong, but at this point it would take so long and so much effort to argue that, unless you're very curious about what I have to say (and since you don't seem to like Cage or care about him, I doubt that you are) I say we just end the Cage discussion here. You already have my recommendation to read the Taruskin article, so if you are genuinely curious, I say that's where you should go. 

Haha I'm sorry that I have to add "maybe you've heard this before" or "of course you probably already know that" to everything I say as clarification so that I don't offend you. I wish you would have thicker skin and just accept that I'm not talking down to anyone in this thread except for William (and even then, I backed off), and only then because he was so obviously verifiably wrong. I'm sure you can appreciate that.  Also you are free to recommend obvious things to me as if I hadn't heard them, and I won't be offended (like did you know Beethoven wrote a 9th symphony? who knew?!) 

Listen, William posted that John Cage was "not a composer." That was an untrue statement, and I refuted him very clearly with traditionally composed works (the sonatas and interludes). I felt this was an important thing to do, because, firstly, he was wrong (haha and not just about that either, just about everything he said about Cage was either wrong or in the wrong order), and I'm going to stick to that, but secondly his view is a widely held belief about John Cage, and if it gains traction it means really great work like the Sonatas and Interludes will just be forgotten in the wash of alleatorism and silence. 

But really, the point is that I was arguing with William about that, not you. William was dead wrong about something, whereas we just have different opinions. Fair enough, right? I understand that me coming into this thread and being patronizing towards a regular poster might seem like I was being patronizing to all of you, but if you look back, I wasn't.

In fact I had no intention of getting into this thread at all (because internet arguments are awful), but a post as bad as William's couldn't go unchalleneged.