Pieces Not Fit for Purpose

[Richard Barrett]

As I suspected, my lack of a technical grasp of music is saving me from such considerations.

On the other hand there are people with a strong technical grasp of music who wouldn't agree with my observations or wouldn't think they were a problem. When I first "discovered" Sorabji's music I found that lack of discipline and necessity rather exhilarating but on further acquaintance the experience began to pale and became more a matter of a vast decorative surface with nothing beneath. Of course that in itself could also be interesting...

[pastoralguy]

Most interesting, thanks AH.

Seconded.

[ahinton]

I would say that "unfocused" means something like a lack of structural discipline on the larger scale and a certain arbitrariness in the material on the smaller scale, so that it's often not at all clear why the music has to have the dimensions that it has, or what the necessity is behind there being the notes or harmonies you hear rather than any others. Of course all music, especially when it works with extended durations like Sorabji, Feldman, LaMonte Young or Wagner, does strange things to the listener's perception of time, but of all the aforementioned my feeling is that this is more hit-and-miss with Sorabji than with the others - the feeling that he simply has no idea when or how to stop is in some cases (Opus Clavicembalisticum) fascinating, in others (Fourth Piano Symphony) simply interminable. To me anyway.

Whilst I don't agree with what you say about the Fourth Piano Symphony, I do at least see where you're coming from in that a massive and tightly controlled first movement of around 1½ hours is followed by a series of much shorter and rather more episodic movements which could give to some the impression that you have gleaned (and the fugue towards the end might not entirely dissipate this impression for some). One could indeed say the same of its much shorter immediate clavisymphonic successor, though not of the sixth and final one. Anyway, thanks for your thoughts on this.

[kea]

Scriabin's Mysterium was supposed to bring about the end of the world. I have listened to the acte préalable several times (whilst burning incense, dancing, smelling many scratch 'n' sniff markers and watching screen savers, as prescribed) and unfortunately there is not yet any sign of this happening.

[ahinton]

Scriabin's Mysterium was supposed to bring about the end of the world. I have listened to the acte préalable several times (whilst burning incense, dancing, smelling many scratch 'n' sniff markers and watching screen savers, as prescribed) and unfortunately there is not yet any sign of this happening.

I think that this might only have stood some chance of happening had you the whole work to hand (although the chunk assembled by Nemtin's not exactly a miniature)...

[Bryn]

Scriabin's Mysterium was supposed to bring about the end of the world. I have listened to the acte préalable several times (whilst burning incense, dancing, smelling many scratch 'n' sniff markers and watching screen savers, as prescribed) and unfortunately there is not yet any sign of this happening.

Ah, but Scriabin's uncompleted work was composed before the many universes interpretation of quantum mechanics was posited. Who's to say that some unfortunate world in a parallel universe did not meet its end due to your risky auditioning of what has come down to us.

[Richard Barrett]

Ah, but Scriabin's uncompleted work was composed before the many universes interpretation of quantum mechanics was posited. Who's to say that some unfortunate world in a parallel universe did not meet its end due to your risky auditioning of what has come down to us.

Not only that, but given the inherent uncertainty associated with events at the quantum level, each and every playing of that recording could destroy the entire universe by setting off a process of vacuum decay. We only think that' s impossible because of the anthropic principle, ie. obviously we live in a universe where it hasn't happened yet.

[kea]

Ah, but Scriabin's uncompleted work was composed before the many universes interpretation of quantum mechanics was posited. Who's to say that some unfortunate world in a parallel universe did not meet its end due to your risky auditioning of what has come down to us.

Excellent point. Let's hope the nobler, more ascended being that replaced me in that parallel universe was cute.

[french frank]

Just popped in to see what people were discussing here

[ahinton]

Just popped in to see what people were discussing here

I hope that you'll have found the posts here fit for purpose...

[Serial_Apologist]

Excellent point. Let's hope the nobler, more ascended being that replaced me in that parallel universe was cute.

Wonderful! - you've made my day!

[NatBalance]

Of all the Sorabji music that I've heard, it has never occurred to me that it is unfocused (not that I have sufficient technical understanding to know what he should have been focusing on).

……………………..

As I suspected, my lack of a technical grasp of music is saving me from such considerations. I wouldn't know structural indiscipline from music that observes the rules (although I can often sense when something's not quite right). Similarly, I am unaware, and therefore untroubled by the randomness of the smaller scale music. Happy in ignorance?

I often find that people who are not into classical music say that that is the case because they do not understand it, or they do not have sufficient musical technical knowledge to get into it. I always think that is like saying 'I don't have enough technical knowledge to get into chocolate cake'. You should not need technical knowledge to enjoy music. In the theme of this thread I am not saying that music is not good if it does not portray the image it sets out to portray, such as the piece that instigated this thread.

Technical knowledge can add, or perhaps even take away, something from the music, just as knowledge of the ingredients of a food recipy can affect whether you like it or not, but just like food, music should be able to stand on its own. If the listener NEEDS to understand it, or have technical knowledge in order to enjoy it then I reckon there is something wrong somewhere.

[french frank]

If the listener NEEDS to understand it, or have technical knowledge in order to enjoy it then I reckon there is something wrong somewhere.

Perhaps enjoyment and appreciation are the differences. Certainly popular music doesn't seem to have much to 'understand', musically, and people seem to enjoy it. But you seldom seem to hear anyone discussing the music. Isn't the point about classical music that it does offer something more to 'understand' (or be aware of) than surface emotion - however strongly experienced?

[Richard Barrett]

Perhaps enjoyment and appreciation are the differences. Certainly popular music doesn't seem to have much to 'understand', musically, and people seem to enjoy it. But you seldom seem to hear anyone discussing the music. Isn't the point about classical music that it does offer something more to 'understand' (or be aware of) than surface emotion - however strongly experienced?

What BO was saying, though, was not that his supposed lack of technical knowledge stood in the way of appreciation but that it prevented him from experiencing what musical adepts might regard as lacking in the music in question. Personally I don't think "lack of knowledge" really works in this way either. I find that my own increasing "technical knowledge", such as it is, widens the range of my musical appreciation rather than narrowing it.

Regarding pop music, it only seems to be simple if one defines "the music" (or for that matter "surface emotion") as denoting the same thing as it does in other musics, that is, if one judges it by inappropriate standards. And thousands of academics and commentators are discussing pop music in sophisticated terms all the time - if you "seldom seem to hear" this it's again probably because you're looking in the wrong places. Many would say that the presence of pop music in higher music education, for example, threatens to push other musics out of consideration, partly because it always has the argument of "popularity" (supposedly equal to "relevance") on its side. Personally I don't see that any music inherently involves "more to understand" than any other. Understanding music in the deepest sense always involves understanding that "the music" is an ill-defined concept which isn't covered by just the written score (if any), or the sounds of any single performance or recording of it, and different musics inhere to different degrees in restrictive definitions like this. Anyway, in what sense is a Schubert song more complex than a Beatles song?

Something tangentially related occurred to me as a result of BO's comment: very many people, myself included, listen to and appreciate many different musics, from "classical" music however one defines it, to pop music, jazz, free improvisation, electronic dance music, whatever. Yet very many creative musicians make their work as if they only appreciated one area out of this diversity, while many others work as if the alternative to this were a box-ticking kind of eclecticism (which certainly seems to go down well with promoters and labels these days - look at any month of Deutsche Grammophon's new releases these days!). Much "contemporary music" is therefore to my mind "not fit for purpose" in that it either ignores the openness to everything which I think is certainly a feature of contemporary listening, or it regurgitates its influences in undigested form, which mediocre music has always done.

[Bryn]

Talking of tea
We can have this (the only Beatles tune I have knowingly bought ....and in this version)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adUkYPkPhRg

Or even the seminal

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RkbsR_lReo

Somewhat OT, but related, may I draw attention to this forthcoming concert.