The Tyranny of Pop Music

[doversoul1]

I said it implies a conditional.

It's as if you were to look at a model railway, and see the sorts of distortions of scale you might see if you looked at a toy railway, whose approach to accuracy is a bit more gung-ho because its purposes are different.

The distinction between the two sorts of model wasn't established until later in the discussion.

Sorry, jean. I can’t follow your argument. I suppose it will be best to leave it to NatBalance to explain what he meant. But then, he did and I couldn’t make heads or tails of it. I think it’s time I got off the thread.

[jean]

...I think it’s time I got off the tread.

...or treadmill...

[doversoul1]

...or treadmill...

Oops. Thank you. Duly corrected.

[ahinton]

Threadmill, perhaps...

[Serial_Apologist]

Threadmill, perhaps...

Leadmill, more like!

[ahinton]

Leadmill, more like!

!!!

[MrGongGong]

That's interesting! What did you ask him exactly, and what did he say?

"Exactly"? I can't remember (he was on the phone from the Orkneys)
He said lots of things about how one makes music for the specific not the generic.

However much tht might be the case, one can no more be sure of the kind of venue in which what one's written gets performed than one can of the kind of audience one's work might get.

Last Sunday night I went to hear a performance of a piece by La Monte Young at HCMF.
His approach to composition is to always have control over the circumstances of performance.

One of the most important things one has to decide about being a creator of music is whether one wants to always be involved in it's performance.


"Ally H and the Scrutonics" is a great band name

[jean]

Even if one was writing a string quartet for the Wigmore Hall I doubt many composers would think about it in that way.

I'd assumed that by 'in that way' you meant as a work to be performed in the Wigmore Hall, which is why aI asked the questions I did.

But now you say:

He said lots of things about how one makes music for the specific not the generic.

So what did you mean?

[MrGongGong]

So what did you mean?

What I said

That's "an effect" as well.

You seem to have the idea that there is some kind of "normal" which is only deviated from in unusual situations.
Even if one was writing a string quartet for the Wigmore Hall I doubt many composers would think about it in that way.

Even if one was writing a piece for an environment that one would consider expected for a particular combination (String quartets in the Wigmore Hall for example) one wouldn't necessarily think that writing something like an extended passage in artificial harmonics was some kind of "special effect".

NOT what you took it to mean, obviously.

But this really is all a bit of a diversion IMV.

The whole model/toy/imaginary/chocolate/wooden railway nonsense is ......... nonsense.

[jean]

You're right, it's not very helpful.

Neither was the pipe.

[MrGongGong]

Neither was the pipe.

You are Vic Reeves and I claim my £100

[ahinton]

"Ally H and the Scrutonics" is a great band name

Is it really? (rather cumbersome, surely?)

But if you're so convinced, go ahead and form such a band, see how successful it is and then perhaps someone might look in to see if he/she might merit any intellectual property rights on the ensemble name (not that I can imagine who would do that)...

[ahinton]

What I said



Even if one was writing a piece for an environment that one would consider expected for a particular combination (String quartets in the Wigmore Hall for example) one wouldn't necessarily think that writing something like an extended passage in artificial harmonics was some kind of "special effect".

NOT what you took it to mean, obviously.

But this really is all a bit of a diversion IMV.

The whole model/toy/imaginary/chocolate/wooden railway nonsense is ......... nonsense.

Oh, I don't know; what about that splendid waltz from Richard Rodney Bennett's Murder on the model railway express?...

[MrGongGong]

Oh, I don't know; what about that splendid waltz from Richard Rodney Bennett's Murder on the model railway express?...

or: Alla ricerca del silenzio perduto (Il Treno), for "prepared train": John Cage

or even

0'00" (4'33" No. 2), solo for any performer (1962)

[NatBalance]

Gosh, such discussion, it will take a long time for me to read and try to understand all these posts and I haven't got that much computer time available to answer quickly. Thanks Jean for trying to clarify my words, much appreciated. That's a good one about the comma, I hadn't realised they might be doing that. I think that getting across my views on this subject, and understanding Gonger's, Doversoul's and other's views via the written word has been (almost) exhausted for now and the best way to carry on is for me to find someone who understands their views (which I don't think will be hard being as I am in the minority) and I can discuss this with them face to face and play examples.

Bye the way, some folk seem to be under the impression that we are off topic when discussing the volumes but I think we are very much still on topic. One of the main characteristics of piped music is that it is quiet.

I don't think I can explain the model railway analogy any better really so I will attempt one last way of explaining what I mean but I need to read all these replies first and that will take a while. Have to leave computer now.