Music which doesn't grab you!

[french frank]

There's plenty of jazz without trumpets and tromobones, ff, though I do know what you mean.

That's a relief! Not everyone seems to

Not liking electric guitar would make most rock if not pop music a turn-off, for similar reasons.

I could equally have said I really don't like the Hendrix style - regardless of the skill in performance.

There are types of music which to me mean aggression. I don't like that either If that is precisely what a musician wants to bring to his (or her?) music, that's fine. Perhaps music is like people: some you like, some you dislike - and avoid, some you love. But if you sit down to analyse it, you can probably come up with reasons.

To Richard: I expect there are a lot of 'jazz lovers' [sic] who don't like Cecil Taylor!

[vinteuil]

Perhaps music is like people: some you like, some you dislike - and avoid, some you love. But if you sit down to analyse it, you can probably come up with reasons.

... or as we was taught :

"I do not like thee, Doctor Fell,
The reason why – I cannot tell;
But this I know, and know full well,
I do not like thee, Doctor Fell." *

There are landscapes I love (bare mountains) and others I dislike (forests); there are periods of architecture (dislike Elizabethan/Jacobean/Caroline; love early Georgian); styles of painting (can't be doing with Boucher or Rubens; love Carpaccio and Guardi). Similarly with music. I'm not sure much is gained by analyzing my antipathy to 19th/20th century English music or lack of interest in pop or jazz. There's clearly nothing 'wrong' with the stuff I don't like - I just don't like it...

[ * had I gone to a classier school it would of course have been Martial's original -

Non amo te, Sabidi, nec possum dicere quare;
Hoc tantum possum dicere, non amo te... ]

.

[cloughie]

... or as we was taught :

"I do not like thee, Doctor Fell,
The reason why – I cannot tell;
But this I know, and know full well,
I do not like thee, Doctor Fell." *

There are landscapes I love (bare mountains) and others I dislike (forests); there are periods of architecture (dislike Elizabethan/Jacobean/Caroline; love early Georgian); styles of painting (can't be doing with Boucher or Rubens; love Carpaccio and Guardi). Similarly with music. I'm not sure much is gained by analyzing my antipathy to 19th/20th century English music or lack of interest in pop or jazz. There's clearly nothing 'wrong' with the stuff I don't like - I just don't like it...

[ * had I gone to a classier school it would of course have been Martial's original -

Non amo te, Sabidi, nec possum dicere quare;
Hoc tantum possum dicere, non amo te... ]

.

Marmite,vints - like or no?

[Richard Barrett]

To Richard: I expect there are a lot of 'jazz lovers' [sic] who don't like Cecil Taylor!

You don't say.

I agree with Keith Tippett that his range is somewhat narrow, but he did spend many years honing it down to the essentials I think. If I'm in the mood I can listen to his playing all day.

Surely one of the reasons this forum continues to exist is a need many people feel to articulate their likes and dislikes (to put it more simply than it actually is). Harry Partch used to say he was a music man seduced into carpentry, or words to that effect. I'm a listener seduced into creativity. Another thing I've probably mentioned before is that in my young days I used often to find myself looking through my record shelves for something to listen to, and thinking that the music I really wanted didn't actually exist. It strikes me that what is often called an "individual voice" among composers (or artists in other disciplines) is actually an individual way of hearing, which everyone has to a greater or lesser extent and which everyone develops to the extent of their involvement in listening, but coupled with a desire to somehow share that way of hearing and thus to expand the experience and consciousness of others. Exploring not just likes and dislikes but the reasons for them is part of that process, unless all you want is a passively pleasing experience, which I don't think is true of most contributors here!

[vinteuil]

Marmite,vints - like or no?

... yep, happy with marmite, thanks!



.

[Ferretfancy]

A few nights ago I was at the Barbican to hear Sakari Oramo and the BBC SO perform Florent Schmitts' Second Symphony. ( He's the one with a double T and no D ) I found myself wondering what was wrong with this rather noisy and disjointed piece. It dawned on me that my lack of interest was due to the fact that I forgot every phrase as soon as it had gone, nothing stayed in the mind for more than a second, and afterwards nothing remained.

Music should always have ideas that stay in the mind, even as tiny germ cells. It's not that I'm against Florent Schmitt, his Tragedy of Salome is worth hearing, but this was a waste of half an hour or so.

As a piece of programming at the start of an excellent concert it was a very odd choice. Luckily the Franck Symphonic Variations and the Ravel Concerto for the Left hand were superb, as was Bavouzet's encore, Oiseaux Tristes from Ravel's Miroirs. Nothing unmemorable there!

[Beresford]

Music should always have ideas that stay in the mind, even as tiny germ cells. It's not that I'm against Florent Schmitt, his Tragedy of Salome is worth hearing, but this was a waste of half an hour or so.

I agree with this approach. The most important criteria for me is - do I care what comes next? If I don't care what comes next, I don't like the music (different to dislike). But the caring can vary depending, among other things, on my ability to concentrate at the time.

[Richard Barrett]

Music should always have ideas that stay in the mind

Yes indeed - although "ideas" can come in many guises of course. I've already mentioned Palestrina, and, to take a more extreme example, another memorable piece I thought of which contains nothing that could be described as a melody or even a phrase is Ligeti's Atmosphères.

On Friday I'll be attending a concert that contains Rachmaninov's The Isle of the Dead, the only thing about which I remember from being at a previous performance was that it didn't seem to have any redeeming features. Looking forward to that!

[MrGongGong]

I once heard a podcast which recommended this approach for software design and development. The claim was that by deliberately trying to create something really bad, more enlightenment would ensue which would lead to a better outcome when the "good" version was made. Allegedly this led to more reliable software than simply trying to create good code in the first place.

Examples: Solve traffic problems on roads. Deliberately think how to make them worse (not always difficult on some UK roads ...).

Customer service - how could you possibly make some any worse? Go on, try it!

I think the name for this approach is "anti-patterns". If the technique does work, presumably it's because there is greater awareness of the pitfalls and problems, and the need to either avoid them, or correct for them.

You will love this https://desert-bus.soft112.com

[Serial_Apologist]

Yes indeed - although "ideas" can come in many guises of course. I've already mentioned Palestrina, and, to take a more extreme example, another memorable piece I thought of which contains nothing that could be described as a melody or even a phrase is Ligeti's Atmosphères.

On Friday I'll be attending a concert that contains Rachmaninov's The Isle of the Dead, the only thing about which I remember from being at a previous performance was that it didn't seem to have any redeeming features. Looking forward to that!

Actually it's pretty good, from memory - not the syrup that comes to mind when thinking in rather clichéd terms about this composer, but more in the Russian 19th century tradition.

[Barbirollians]

Again this really depends on one's judgement as to whether it's intended to be otherwise... some music can be generally regarded as beautiful without containing any "memorable melodies", Palestrina for example.

Self-evidently but it is undoubtedly a factor in why some music may not grab one . Quite a few of Hyperion's Romantic Piano Concerto series would fall into this category for all the pianistic fireworks many contain .

Memorable melodies one does not look for in much of the music of Berg and Webern for example - it does not mean it does not grab the attention.

[kea]

Are you thinking of a work such as Strauss's Four Last Songs, which idiomatically sound as it they were composed somewhere around 1899, sharing a common asdvanced chromaticism with eg Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht, as an example there? I ask because I find myself intrigued by the later music of composers who ostensibly resisted the advances of musical language effected by their leading modernist contemporaries while betraying a inability to resist certain aspects of what those advances, eg Franz Schmidt and Pfitzner in their later works.

I think more about when I'm at a concert with a world premiere, and afterwards go "well that was perfectly pleasant, but it sounded like off-brand Ravel" (or whoever).

I'm not sure why but for whatever reason this is a turn-off even if I like actual Ravel: there's nothing wrong with supplying more of the same, but something tends to be missing that keeps me from really enjoying the music. I want to say a sense of the music not having a compelling reason to exist, but that's a bit mean.

[kea]

I'm a listener seduced into creativity. Another thing I've probably mentioned before is that in my young days I used often to find myself looking through my record shelves for something to listen to, and thinking that the music I really wanted didn't actually exist. It strikes me that what is often called an "individual voice" among composers (or artists in other disciplines) is actually an individual way of hearing, which everyone has to a greater or lesser extent and which everyone develops to the extent of their involvement in listening, but coupled with a desire to somehow share that way of hearing and thus to expand the experience and consciousness of others.

I think this is a good insight. Certainly one reason I and many other composers never developed an "individual voice" is because we tend to take our creativity for granted, rather than analysing why we create and how we listen and what our goals are: just writing down the sounds we hear in our heads without thinking about the way we hear. Reflection is often scary because one can feel like looking too deeply into the source of one's creativity will extinguish it, even though that isn't necessarily true—it's taken me a long time since I started postgraduate study to feel like composition is "worth it" again, and a lot of student composers seem to just avoid discussing their creative process in any respect except the most superficial. (The other reason developing an "individual voice" is hard is that if one listens to a lot of music it can feel like all the good ideas have already been taken!)

[jean]

... some music can be generally regarded as beautiful without containing any "memorable melodies", Palestrina for example.

I can never understand it when people say this - Palestrina is full of melodies - or tunes, is there a difference? - which I find intensely memorable!

[Dave2002]

Memorable melodies one does not look for in much of the music of Berg and Webern for example - it does not mean it does not grab the attention.

Or even Beethoven on occasions. Try the Harp quartet. I can't remember movements 1,2 and 4, but the scherzo with its rhythmic insistance just blows one (me) away. OK - I know there's a tune there somewhere, but it's the rhythm which "does" it.