Music which doesn't grab you!

[Richard Barrett]

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!

Fair enough. My Ligeti example was much more to the point anyway.

[Stanfordian]

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!

Surely, you both can't be right!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Surely, you both can't be right!

I think they both can, Stanf - some people find some Music difficult/impossible to "remember" (especially on limited acquaintance) that others (perhaps with more experience of it) find intensely "memorable". (After all, some people have difficulty remembering names, or phone numbers, or birthdays, whilst others seem to be able to remember such details instantaneously.)

Whether or not a piece of Music is memorable may have nothing to do with the Music itself - nor is "memorability" necessarily credit-worthy: a melody/harmonic sequence might be easily remembered because it's banal or sounds similar to such features in another work (or because the composer keeps repeating the same ryddu thing over and over again, eh, Nikolai Andreyevich?!). Many of my own favourite pieces have become favourites only after several hearings, when features have become familiar - and works that I might have initially dismissed as being "unmemorable" have with greater acquaintance become lodged in both my memory and affections.

[teamsaint]

If I could lower the tone a moment, a successful song that always intrigued me, ( don't like it I hasten to add) is " Ca Plane pour Moi"".

The melody, such as it is, consists of a four note sequence at the end of seemingly endless repetitions of ( and slightly around) a single note. Sort of punk parody meets Scelsi.
Anyway, despite nothing much in the way of melody, or indeed rhythmic( or any other) interest, people appeared to find it catchy, and , I suppose partly through endless airplay, memorable.
Odd.

Anyway, apologies for that lowbrow intervention......

[MrGongGong]

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.

To my ears, Webern is full of melodies
NOT that melody is always desirable

[Stanfordian]

I think they both can, Stanf - some people find some Music difficult/impossible to "remember" (especially on limited acquaintance) that others (perhaps with more experience of it) find intensely "memorable". (After all, some people have difficulty remembering names, or phone numbers, or birthdays, whilst others seem to be able to remember such details instantaneously.)

Whether or not a piece of Music is memorable may have nothing to do with the Music itself - nor is "memorability" necessarily credit-worthy: a melody/harmonic sequence might be easily remembered because it's banal or sounds similar to such features in another work (or because the composer keeps repeating the same ryddu thing over and over again, eh, Nikolai Andreyevich?!). Many of my own favourite pieces have become favourites only after several hearings, when features have become familiar - and works that I might have initially dismissed as being "unmemorable" have with greater acquaintance become lodged in both my memory and affections.

Thank you ferney for the interesting response!

[cloughie]

If I could lower the tone a moment, a successful song that always intrigued me, ( don't like it I hasten to add) is " Ca Plane pour Moi"".

The melody, such as it is, consists of a four note sequence at the end of seemingly endless repetitions of ( and slightly around) a single note. Sort of punk parody meets Scelsi.
Anyway, despite nothing much in the way of melody, or indeed rhythmic( or any other) interest, people appeared to find it catchy, and , I suppose partly through endless airplay, memorable.
Odd.

Anyway, apologies for that lowbrow intervention......

Sorry you've lost me there ts, I can't even remember the song title, let alone what it sounded like.

[teamsaint]

Sorry you've lost me there ts, I can't even remember the song title, let alone what it sounded like.

Good to see your SOH has returned, presumably after last nights win?
I'll spare you a youtube of the song in question.

[cloughie]

Good to see your SOH has returned, presumably after last nights win?
I'll spare you a youtube of the song in question.

I can only think it was the 'Woolly Bully' of the punk era!

[teamsaint]

I can only think it was the 'Woolly Bully' of the punk era!

Without you having apparently heard it, I think that is an excellent observation.

[Serial_Apologist]

Without you having apparently heard it, I think that is an excellent observation.

Was that a known unknown
or an unknown known
then?

[teamsaint]

Was that a known unknown
or an unknown known
then?

Don't know.

[gradus]

I am not grabbed by many of the current popular musical forms, rap, garage etc. It is perhaps my loss and I am missing great musical experiences but I am quite happy to leave these forms of musical expression to the generations that develop and appreciate them.

[Richard Barrett]

I am not grabbed by many of the current popular musical forms, rap, garage etc. It is perhaps my loss and I am missing great musical experiences but I am quite happy to leave these forms of musical expression to the generations that develop and appreciate them.

OK but this thread has been mostly about exploring the reasons why some music or other doesn't "grab" you rather than just citing examples which don't. Going back to fg's ideas on "memorability", I was thinking of a slightly wider application of the word than just whether one remembers a melody or not, which could be due to unnecessarily excessive repetition rather than any other qualities... when you experience the desire to hear something again, that's an aspect of memorability too, having the idea that you can return to and enhance an experience you've had, even if (or especially if) its details aren't clear in the memory. In other words, it can often be the experience in general that's immediately memorable and compelling rather than any particular feature of it.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Going back to fg's ideas on "memorability", I was thinking of a slightly wider application of the word than just whether one remembers a melody or not, which could be due to unnecessarily excessive repetition rather than any other qualities... when you experience the desire to hear something again, that's an aspect of memorability too, having the idea that you can return to and enhance an experience you've had, even if (or especially if) its details aren't clear in the memory. In other words, it can often be the experience in general that's immediately memorable and compelling rather than any particular feature of it.

- I was thinking of this a few weeks back after seeing Janacek's Osud in Leeds; Music I'd not heard in around thirty years, but which I "recognized" and seemed much more "familiar" as I was listening than I'd've thought possible. Not individual themes/harmonies (and certainly not the storyline!) - but the general "feeling" created by the Music which was "reawakened" as I heard the Music again after so long. (I think I should have a sponsored use of inverted commas for Children in Need!)