Dave, William,
It's interesting to note, given the bassoon vs horn comments, that in the final movement of the fifth, leading into bar 318, that Maestro Ludwig writes the bassoons in unison (FF) and then answers the phrase with unison horns (p) reversing the almost expected trend of building from Bsns to Hns (with the assumption that horns can blow the socks off the bassoons in terms of power, and bassoons, given they're tonally comfortable with both woodwinds and horns, provide a natural role as a transitional instrument in this context), and this device sounds powerful. (in the context of the wider passage, given the FF Tutti accented crotchets in the previous 6 bars.).) Then in bar 335, he uses the Contrabassoon with octaved Strings to state the first phrase, then answers again Hns(p) this time accompanied by the Oboe and piccolo.

My point is, i wonder if the Maestro was limited by the more primitive structure of the horns of the time, to the extent that is being implied. And i'm not sure the Bassoons are as weak as some may think. As those here, who are fortunate enough to play the french horn will know, the harmonic scale gives the Eb horn in particular quite some latitude for melodic invention. And given the usual number of bassoons in an orchestra of the time, balanced with generally reduced numbers in other sections, i wonder if we aren't approaching this from a larger modern orchestra perspective. Having played the fifth more than once, i've noticed that bassoon players can overblow this particular phase in some sort of attempt to bolster the balance between the preceding profound phrase and the following horns, and i'm not sure they need to given the 'solo' perspective of this particular phrase.

All this of course in the context of the orchestral size, musical form and structure, and 'acceptability' of the time.

Dave, thanks for the insight from your tutors, (and theirs). I've not considered the Bassoons to be particularly weak in the phrase mentioned, but then i used to sit next to the noisy chaps, so maybe i'm suffering from selective double reed deafness, brought on by a desire to turn a 'blind ear' from time to time!


Thoroughly interesting discussion among the intelligentsia! [:)]


Regards,

Alex.

The History of Art at Afternoon Tea

http://webexhibits.org/colorart/i/michelangelo-creation-adam-.jpg">





















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Publishing Info:

"The History of Art at Afternoon Tea"
Angelo Clematide, February 18, 2007
© 2007 McHaze Hill Music

Thanks for the inspiration!

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@vibrato said:

And I always am curious to hear some music from all of you as to how your ideas and experience come together in composition. It would be very inspiring for others, if all of you posted some of your work.

I hope you will share a little something!

Tanuj, here a short chord study, preliminary made for a ballet.

An Evening Without Angels_chords only.mp3

Download link:
http://www.sendspace.com/file/ymlo0a


The ballet starts with the capturing of several angels, musically represented as a large wide chord with a percussive accent, this accented chord (muted in the mp3) represents an incorporeal, omnipotent power. Following the tribunal and the verdict. It is not revealed to the audience what the angels perpetrated, it could be anything, impoliteness, ignorance, disobedience etc., we leave that to the imagination of the recipients. Next is the transfer to the place of detention. Thats where the mp3 ends. Arrival: the angels arriving on a abandoned planet, quasi are pressed down to this deserted landscape, and are laying on the ground for a moment. They want to fly away, but realize that this privilege was taken away from them. Tease: they gaze around very peculiarly, then start a debate and tease each other. This leads to harmless quarrels and shortly after to violent fights. At the end of this conflict they are exhausted.....


Please tell me what you feel, think, or eventually visualize. And try to tell what chord structure and tonal concept is going on. 1st hint: there is not twice the same chord in this segment. Ask me for more hints, or any question.


.

there is my new mix with opus 1+2

http://thierry.ecuvillon.free.fr/VSL/EDEN2.mp3 [:D]

@JimineySnicket said:

Hello

I'm wondering if there are people out there who are programming 'new music' or 'contemporary music' (call it what you will) with the VSL. Everything I here seems to be very pastiche and film music orientated. Dont get me wrong I love it just as much as the next person but what I would love to hear is the VSL really being stretched...... musically speaking.

It doesn't have to be original music (although it would be great if it was) but maybe something by Birtwistle, Ligeti, Kurtag or Feldman. I was very pleased to see the piece by Takemitsu on the demo section. That's a good start but please lets have more of it.......

Cheers
Jim

Would appreciate feedback on this piece, programmed using the VSL Solo Strings:
http://garyeskow.com/xray.html

hi, personnally, i think the played method is similar or the keyboard technique. it look like a jazz piano piece. but i don't tell i have the truth ... [:D]

here is Moderato cantabile more classical technique: http://thierry.ecuvillon.free.fr


Regards,

Thierry

@hermitage59 said:

Dave, thanks for the insight from your tutors, (and theirs). I've not considered the Bassoons to be particularly weak in the phrase mentioned...

Just saw this Alex which you must have posted a while back.

I must confess I noticed the bassoon replacement of the majestic horns there prior to anyone pointing it out to me. I think the nobility and volume (as in size, not so much db) of the horns is missed. The impact of the horns no longer there as well as expectation of the listener to hear them resound as before just seems like a letdown to me. The music is so great that it gets carried off well enough by the bassoons but my understanding is that the likes of Bruno Walter always put the horns in there. I'll have to find his recording of the 5th and verify. His recording of the 6th is one of the greatest recordings of any music I have ever heard. I don't know what to compare it to really.

@JimineySnicket said:

It doesn't have to be original music (although it would be great if it was) but maybe something by Birtwistle, Ligeti, Kurtag or Feldman. I was very pleased to see the piece by Takemitsu on the demo section. That's a good start but please lets have more of it.......

I think you could call this "original music":

http://www.synestesia.fi/music.html

If not, why not?

Sure it might be original (You Are Getting Veeerryy Sleeepppyy...)

ZZZzzzzzz....

Generating music from photos in this way is interesting but it seems (to me at least) that whatever algorithmic process is involved doesn’t seem to translate intensity, contrast, or even a kinetic energy implied by the visual source material. It seems to me this stuff tends to kind of march along slowly without any real curve or direction. Despite the variety of subject matter, the music sort of sounds all the same even with the different timbres represented.

So is it original? Yes. Is it music?

I would say it’s more of an academic exercise.

Clark

P.S. Sorry, don't want to be too much a spoil sport, but I'm highly critical of generated music where the means takes a front seat to the end result. If I was to generate music a la John Cage (chance operations included) I would be SO picky and throw out SO many renderings for aesthetic reasons that I might as well write the damn thing myself.

@lgrohn said:

I think you could call this "original music":

If not, why not?

From the point that I never heard anything like it, yes I would say it is new. What may speaks against calling it original is that it sounds as if composed by a machine, an apparatus not capable producing exciting results, my intuition tells me that the music is not man made. Traditionally I use the word original in conjunction with work made by humans. I guess the photos are not the reason why the music sound kind of dull. I wonder if the process you using to produce this sound scapes could be capable of producing more exciting results.

Btw, why does the music not produce any association to the pictures they where derived from, at least not in my brain?

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@Another User said:

P.S. Sorry, don't want to be too much a spoil sport, but I'm highly critical of generated music where the means takes a front seat to the end result. If I was to generate music a la John Cage (chance operations included) I would be SO picky and throw out SO many renderings for aesthetic reasons that I might as well write the damn thing myself.

OK. I am just a theoretical physicist sitting on the back seat. Throwing out? Well, that period is less than what the instrumentalist is using for packing his instrument and traveling for the first practice of a new piece in order really to hear it for the first time...

@Angelo Clematide said:

Btw, why does the music not produce any association to the pictures they where derived from, at least not in my brain?

How could it be possible because music doesn't have any semantics, if you don't call clichees as semantics (most of which learned at movies). Still, if you free your mind and forget the clichees in your mind, there might be something to find, I hope. Actually the listeners are always creating part of the music (experience) in their own contexts.

Igrohn,

Thank you for being such a good sport with my comments. I’m sure that the development of this algorithmic MIDI generation stuff is not easy. I for one have not the stomach for it.

Concerning “new genre:”

If I was to critique a new form of music should I create all new vocabulary? Or how about a new language? I could make it complete with new symbols instead of our alphabet! Around this new language I could invent an entire alien culture with its own rituals and religion, etc.

If your “new genre” is so unique, why use western tuning? Why use samples of classical instruments? If this is on purpose and not just convenient because you are lazy then expect this music to be compared to other tonal modern and contemporary classical work. Period.

When I use the words “intensity, contrast and kinetic energy” I am using vocabulary that qualitatively describes ALL art, not from an academic standpoint, but from a layman’s point of view.

If we wanted to subject these works to classroom analysis I could say:

Why is everything in the same general tempo?

Why is there the complete absence of linear development? In other words, in an effort to be melodically ambiguous, you have crossed the line into musical obscurity.

Dynamics?

Short (staccato) versus long notes?

If you create a work that features certain characteristics it stands to reason that you should explore variations on those parameters. Failure to do so results in art that suffers from a lack of focus and story:

Imagine any one of those photos on your website but with almost zero contrast---

Rocks On Ice: The snow is grey, the lake is grey so one can hardly delineate one from the other.

Likewise “Different Scales:” The beauty of those images is the study in contrast. The clean lines. Your generated music hardly exhibits any of those qualities. Instead, I hear a sonic carpet that lazily oozes from pitch level to superimposed pitch level, creating sonorities that sound interesting but don’t go anywhere.

I’m not saying that this music is a complete failure, but that it is hardly developed.

To be fair, I listened to the other music (http://www.kolumbus.fi/lauri.grohn/demo05.html) and that, indeed, is much better. I felt that there was contour and direction where the newer material was lacking.

Personally, I feel that the time and effort put into tweaking the engine behind MIDI generated scores would be so great that I would rather “follow my ear” rather than “chasing the equation,” so to speak.

Clark

@Another User said:

To be fair, I listened to the other music (http://www.kolumbus.fi/lauri.grohn/demo05.html) and that, indeed, is much better. I felt that there was contour and direction where the newer material was lacking.

Agreed. Those pieces where selected from a larger material, perhaps one from ten. (And shorter, except one.) I think the ratio is still the same. I will make a new selection for next summer for TIME OF MUSIC 2007:
http://www.musiikinaika.org/

Thanks for your comments once more. Composers are very lonely people as far I know. So are the metacomposers like me.
LG

Ighron, all what music is to me is very simple, and to say it in one sentence, quasi at a least common denominator, I would phrase it like the following:

"I'm not interested in music, I'm interested in the intelligence behind the music"

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@Angelo Clematide said:

"I'm not interested in music, I'm interested in the intelligence behind the music"

Good point. Perhaps some day experimental musicologists will show why listening music is creating emotions. Is it "intelligency behind" or something else, we will see.

Anyway many people believe that music has been of great value in creating cooperation between ancient people and that way human race became what it is now. Was there intelligence behind or something else?

Lauri Gröhn

Igrohn,

When you use an instrument, any instrument, you reference the music and culture that is native to that tool. REGARDLESS whether or not you intend to include whatever cultural elements that accompany said instrument.

If I was to incorporate a penny whistle into twelve-tone piece I would still be bringing Celtic (or whatever) references into the piece just because of the timbre itself. To disregard this kind of cultural baggage and the influence this sound has on the composition is horribly naïve when attempting to conceive a “new style.”

To say that instrument manufacturers are bad composers is a cop-out. Don’t ignore the obvious. Harry Partch did it--so could you via synthesis, FX or some other method. But if you DO decide to use a violin sound don’t expect listeners to NOT make a cultural reference. People don’t live in a vacuum.

Minimalism has form and contrast and especially kinetic energy. They occur on a much different, many times a more subtle curve but they are there. Just because your new computer music lacks any resemblance to neo-classical or late romantic music doesn't mean that it shares the strengths of this repetitive art-music.

To illustrate: I am by trade a jazz pianist with a very strong background in classical music (20 years in each). I get very upset when musicians think that because something begins to sound 'like' jazz that it IS jazz. DO YOUR HOMEWORK, FOLKS! Going halfway stylistically is worse than excluding any reference whatsoever.

So taking it one step further, they attempt to create something just 'to the left' of jazz because they can’t write compose good “regular” jazz BECAUSE THEY HAVEN”T DONE THEIR HOMEWORK ENOUGH.

Or at least that’s what it SOUNDS like because…

They think they are creating a new musical style but what they have accomplished in reality is bad music that sounds sort of jazzy. Neglecting elements that validate a particular style or ignoring elements that confuse the listener throws the whole focus of the music off. Latin jazz, free jazz, and serial/atonal composition all suffer from a blight of substandard material that attempts to pass itself off as authentic or musically uncompromised, mostly because those composers neglect the artistic consequences when not fully understanding a particular cultural or musical reference.

How many bad “music concrete” or “atonal” compositions do we have to endure in the Universities before we realize that these students like to compose in these genres because they feel they can “bullshit” the style better than “legitimate” western classical music?

Learning how subtle and significant these details are will reveal to the composer how dangerous it can be to try and 'make it sound different' or 'a unique mixture of latin and jazz' when in reality there are new connections (read: cultural faux pas) being made unintentionally.

This distracts from the original intent. It makes the composer sound amateurish.

On another note: the pictures.

If you don’t want people to attempt a connection between the photos and the music then you shouldn’t display them at all.

I think the photos you have selected are fine examples. I can’t imagine what would constitute “better.”

Clark

P.S. Of course, all of the above is IMHO. Thank you for letting me express my opinions so directly.

@Another User said:

Learning how subtle and significant these details are will reveal to the composer how dangerous it can be to try and 'make it sound different' or 'a unique mixture of latin and jazz' when in reality there are new connections (read: cultural faux pas) being made unintentionally.

What I actually tried to say that (using a metaphor) valuating dogs by using criteria belonging to cat's is not a good idea.
If you don’t want people to attempt a connection between the photos and the music then you shouldn’t display them at all.
Using an analogous idea composers should not give names to their pieces.

Anyway, I have published the demos without any post-processing of the score. That is to show what the software can do. It is possible to post-process the score to include more proper crescencos, accerandos etc, to cut the pieces and rearrange the parts etc. It's just up to the future users.

Yours,
LG

A spirited discussion, to be sure. Thanks for engaging and humoring me.

Whether you know it or not, elements in these new pieces are making erroneous references while ommitting substantial compositional content. Include or ignore them at your peril.

Alot of Brian Eno's ambient "energy-less" music was used for sound installations. He knew the purpose and audience. The music was therefore perfect for its use in that context. I have not listened to him in a long time but as I recall I felt that it was evocative and contained a subtle energy.

Dogs and cats notwithstanding, don't expect computer generated music to reflect the subtle energy of minimalism or ambient music when it can't make a legitimate or convincing reference.

Of course composers should not name their pieces if they want to avoid the association. But I'm guessing that Chopin REALLY wanted people to think Polonaise when he wrote one.

By leaving most of the interpretive work up to the composer, this MIDI generation software looks less attractive. I mean, why would I want to polish the computer's turd when I can write and polish my own?

(With all due respect, of course--just playing the devil's advocate)

Clark