Howard Goodall on BBC Two

[BBMmk2]

Well i watched it for the first time, last night and I thought what a load oa dribble! Clips here and there of various pieces of music, HG trying to play the piano, yes and also the point about serialism etc being the same trhing!! Gawd!!

[aeolium]

I'm afraid I stopped watching after the episode on the classical composers, which I thought was desperately poor, full of loose generalisations and bad metaphors. I agree with ferney's msg 155 in which he compares this series with the excellent BBC4 one on the Hundred Years' War, which is underpinned by solid research and reference to contemporary sources. As an educational programme it should have been much better.

[MrGongGong]

Are you serious? Whilst I agree with you that serialism added another approach to the composer's toolbox, you'd have to be extremely picky about who you class as a 'composer' before you could say they've all been influenced by serialism. And as for all composers using modified serial techniques...

Yes I am
The important thing IMV is the shift in ideas NOT the specific details of Serialism.
Some folk are influenced by trying to do the opposite , as a reaction

Cage's Music of Changes isn't sonically a million miles away from some of the "total serialist" pieces yet they use what might at first seem to be opposing strategies.

By "modified serial techniques" I mean things like Max uses (there was a good example in the other BBC doc the other day) or even the ways in which the software that most composers of all types of music use enables one to manipulate note based events in a variety of ways then audition the results. Or drum machines, sequencers etc etc etc etc all part of music in a wider sense

Not all influences are perceptible sonically ...........

The "problem" with the "serialism is a dead end" stuff is that it conflates taste with value ..... and therefore fails

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Some folk are influenced by trying to do the opposite , as a reaction

Or maybe they are just ignoring it.

[MrGongGong]

Or maybe they are just ignoring it.

That's not possible IMV
it's like trying to pretend that you haven't heard an electric guitar
I'm sure it IS possible to find composers (tricky in Europe) who haven't heard any serialist music but one is always influenced by what one hears.

[Mr Pee]

That's not possible IMV
it's like trying to pretend that you haven't heard an electric guitar
I'm sure it IS possible to find composers (tricky in Europe) who haven't heard any serialist music but one is always influenced by what one hears.

I've heard an electric guitar. Has it influenced me? No.

Let me get this traight.....your position is that ALL composers have been influenced by serialism. Even those whose music shows not the slightest hint of serial technique- Howard Goodall, for example, or John Rutter- apparently compose in that style purely as a reaction to serialism, rather than because that is the style in which they are best able to express themselves. Do you really believe that?



By the way, what is a "note based event"?

[MrGongGong]

I've heard an electric guitar. Has it influenced me? No.

Let me get this traight.....your position is that ALL composers have been influenced by serialism. Even those whose music shows not the slightest hint of serial technique- Howard Goodall, for example, or John Rutter- apparently compose in that style purely as a reaction to serialism, rather than because that is the style in which they are best able to express themselves. Do you really believe that?



By the way, what is a "note based event"?

For a start YOU are't necessarily best placed to say whether something has influenced you or otherwise....

I never said anything about "purely" reacting or that its a "reaction" at all
but that the IDEAS that serialism developed are very much part of compositional thought in the succeeding years.

Music isn't necessarily composed of "styles' or even "Genres" they are but two ways of us thinking about it. " i

Music isn't always about "expressing oneself" either ........ try studying some other musics

A "note based event" to quote the judge IS precisely what it says, an EVENT that uses "notes" ...... Not ALL music is composed of "notes" in the pitch sense, So I should probably have said a "pitch based note event"

This is an example of how one can manipulate note based events in a pitch time grid ...... fairly common stuff these days

http://onlinesequencer.net/371

[amateur51]

For a start YOU are't necessarily best placed to say whether something has influenced you or otherwise....

I never said anything about "purely" reacting or that its a "reaction" at all
but that the IDEAS that serialism developed are very much part of compositional thought in the succeeding years.

Music isn't necessarily composed of "styles' or even "Genres" they are but two ways of us thinking about it. " i

Music isn't always about "expressing oneself" either ........ try studying some other musics

A "note based event" to quote the judge IS precisely what it says, an EVENT that uses "notes" ...... Not ALL music is composed of "notes" in the pitch sense, So I should probably have said a "pitch based note event"

This is an example of how one can manipulate note based events in a pitch time grid ...... fairly common stuff these days

http://onlinesequencer.net/371

I went to a percussion concert at Royal Academy of Music last Friday (yes, another Friday freebie :biggrin) and it started with an absolutely terrifying percussion piece by ... Shostakovich: Entr'acte from his absurdist opera The Nose

From the programme note :

"The third movement of the suite is featured in today's performance, and presents a striking early example of a movement written for unpitched percussion only. This [..] is featured in the middle of the first act after Ivan has flung the severed nose into the river, before unsuccessfully attempting to bribe a police officer who demands to know what he's up to.

Although restricted to unpitched percussion, Shostakovich derives a sensitively judged and varied palette of sonorities, whilst still preserving the satirical, almost circus-like lanuage of the opera. The quieter central passage particularly reveals Shostakovich's refined ear for orchestration, creating a recitative-like conversation between different instruments over the quiet roll of a side drum, a passage which effectively balances out the copmic chaos of much of the surrounding music"

A fascinating concert - I'll write it up sometime

[Ian]

This is an example of how one can manipulate note based events in a pitch time grid ...... fairly common stuff these days

http://onlinesequencer.net/371

and there's me thinking that composers have been manipulating note based events in a pitch time grid (aka dots) for centuries.

[Mr Pee]

and there's me thinking that composers have been manipulating note based events in a pitch time grid (aka dots) for centuries.

[MrGongGong]

and there's me thinking that composers have been manipulating note based events in a pitch time grid (aka dots) for centuries.

Of course they have

[Ian]

Of course they have

So how does a sequencer piano roll view demonstrate the alleged all pervading influence of serialism (or whatever serialism makes you think about)?

[MrGongGong]

So how does a sequencer piano roll view demonstrate the alleged all pervading influence of serialism (or whatever serialism makes you think about)?

It wasn't meant to
It was merely to show MrP what I meant by "note events"

Because its a systemisation of a musical process
the ability and desire to make sets of related materials using logic and pattern
yes, this is evident in much earlier musics BUT the idea that one separates ones "taste" from the process while it runs THEN chooses is very significant.
Bach didn't really stick to the "rules"

[Ian]

Because its a systemisation of a musical process
the ability and desire to make sets of related materials using logic and pattern
yes, this is evident in much earlier musics BUT the idea that one separates ones "taste" from the process while it runs THEN chooses is very significant.
Bach didn't really stick to the "rules"

Your “significant” difference is the using of processes for which outcomes can’t be predicted, and therefore have to be “run” on spec. (Presumably on the off-chance that something one’s taste finds acceptable might be generated.) But just because the outcome of a applying a technique (e.g. repeating a phrase at a different pitch) can be easily predicted (therefore negating the need to “run” it) doesn’t make the use of such a ploy less of a “process”.

[MrGongGong]

no it still is a process
and the outcomes of serial processes ARE predictable (unlike some other processes)