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The Music of the Future

futuresymphony.org

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Re: The Music of the Future

#51

Post by jay-anderson »

21 wrote: post #18
roymurdock wrote: post #8

Interesting ideas wrapped up in painfully obfuscated academic references (obviously not intended for this audience). THE FOURTH DEVELOPMENT [of new music], which is in many ways the most interesting, [is] namely the replacement of tones by sounds, and musical by acoustical hearing. Varèse, Pierre Schaeffer and their immediate successors awoke composers and audiences to the many new sounds, some of them produced elect…

FWIW, one of my beefs with classical music is the extreme lack of diversity in tones (ie: piano, violin, ...) as opposed to popular music (synthesizer) When you listen popular music on a timeline (70s, 80s, ...), you can at the same time see to the evolution of synthesizers and music production software.

I tend to believe the exact opposite and it's one of the reasons I dislike much of popular music. Good orchestral music makes use of a wide range of tonal, harmonic, and dynamic colors available. Bad (in my opinion) pop music sounds the same and uses the same limited orchestration of guitars, bass, maybe keyboard, drum set, + vocals and tends to have little dynamic or harmonic variety.

I agree that synthesizers in pop music have been a welcome addition (70s & 80s produced some good music with it as you mentioned).

Re: The Music of the Future

#52

Post by buzzybee »

This author cuts to the heart of it at the end of the article - the economics of current arts patronage supports an obscuring attitude that makes new ideas deliberately less accessible, else they must be crammed into a hyper-marketable popular formula.

In the same way that we have class or income divides, we have a culture divide through the hard division of "pop" vs. "academic" styles. This divide affects not just the arts, but math, science, philosophy, and related endeavors.

Re: The Music of the Future

#53

Post by sytelus »

21 wrote: post #14
sublimeloge wrote: post #12

I expect that this article's title will give some Hacker News readers an incorrect impression of what it's about. As the article mentions, this talk was given at the Donaueschingen Festival, so the audience almost certainly consisted mostly of fans of avant-garde contemporary classical music. If the author only mentions jazz or rock, or electronics only in passing, it's because he's primarily talking about the future…

This article could use some youtube links. For example this one, to the 12-note piece mentioned towards the start: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sylplEFxXo and the talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8K9gkuHpMo

Thanks. Also available on Google Music: https://play.google.com/music/listen?u=0#/album/B7rnljvunduk...

Re: The Music of the Future

#54

Post by iammyIP »

hellofunk wrote: post #43
ciconia wrote: post #39

Not really surprising considering the venue and the audience in front of which this talk was given, but still, a complete disregard for the greatest musical phenomenon of the 20th century _in classical music_, that is John Cage and the profound revolution he has brought to musical thinking is more than enough reason to reject this as nonsense. It just goes to show how the so-called "avant garde" in classical music is…

You think John Cage was the most profound revolution in 20th century classical music?

Do you really think any civilisation could exist in this universe without having discovered the musical piece of 'play nothing and listen'?

Re: The Music of the Future

#55

Post by hellofunk »

iammyIP wrote: post #54
hellofunk wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think John Cage was the most profound revolution in 20th century classical music?

Do you really think any civilisation could exist in this universe without having discovered the musical piece of 'play nothing and listen'?

You know what? I sure do think that.

Re: The Music of the Future

#56

Post by bcheung »

sublimeloge wrote: post #12

I expect that this article's title will give some Hacker News readers an incorrect impression of what it's about. As the article mentions, this talk was given at the Donaueschingen Festival, so the audience almost certainly consisted mostly of fans of avant-garde contemporary classical music. If the author only mentions jazz or rock, or electronics only in passing, it's because he's primarily talking about the future…

From reading it, I almost got the impression there are 2 different worlds of music and they are completely isolated.

That led me to wonder if there should be more cross pollination between the two.

When speaking of, and indeed when many modern electronic music composers write music they don't think in terms of phrases, chords, cadences, etc. The tools they use to write music don't have notes on a staff, they are just rectangles in a graph (1 axis for pitch and the other for time).

But at the same time, those who compose in the more traditional sense only stick to the sounds, patterns, and vocabulary from the classical world. They don't do anything like "drops".

It would be really interesting to hear what could come from the combination of the two and also the productivity that could be gained by both worlds learning about the concepts and tools used by the other.

Re: The Music of the Future

#57

Post by rpearl »

kevinwang wrote: post #41
beat wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, if you have good examples of modern electronic music that's really experimental, please share! I try to keep my ears open to new things. That said, I've used the tools of electronic music. I've composed with sequences and samples. I find physical instruments to be more directly expressive (I play guitar and drums myself, but I get the same vibe from keyboard, horn, and string players). More importantly, though, I…

I find it interesting that your comment mentions that restriction in sound leads to better musical creation, and the comment you're replying to remarks that the best electronic performance they saw was one where all the music was composed of one sample

I find it more interesting that the original comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13231557) found computers "generally very restrictive" and therefore uninteresting for experimentation...

And their reply to mine found computers "unrestrictive" and that they "find restriction to be essential to playing interesting music"

Re: The Music of the Future

#58

Post by analog31 »

scribu wrote: post #47
sublimeloge wrote: post #12

I expect that this article's title will give some Hacker News readers an incorrect impression of what it's about. As the article mentions, this talk was given at the Donaueschingen Festival, so the audience almost certainly consisted mostly of fans of avant-garde contemporary classical music. If the author only mentions jazz or rock, or electronics only in passing, it's because he's primarily talking about the future…

Besides the overview of philosophical trends in "serious" music, it also attempts to explain the sociological mechanism through which the avant-garde movement still survives (what he calls The Dictatorship of Difficult Music). I found that very interesting and I wouldn't be surprised if it extended to other art forms too.

Part of it might be that musicians and composers have a finite boredom threshold. As a jazz musician, much as I love "the girl from Ipanema," and it's one of the greatest songs ever written, if I have to play it yet again in the same way as it's always played, I find it hard to refrain from misbehaving.

I prefer playing music that is more avant garde (within my abilities of course) even if it appeals to a smaller audience.

Re: The Music of the Future

#59

Post by stupidcar »

sublimeloge wrote: post #12

I expect that this article's title will give some Hacker News readers an incorrect impression of what it's about. As the article mentions, this talk was given at the Donaueschingen Festival, so the audience almost certainly consisted mostly of fans of avant-garde contemporary classical music. If the author only mentions jazz or rock, or electronics only in passing, it's because he's primarily talking about the future…

It's funny that he identifies the problem: that avant-garde classical hasn't been able to find a way to connect with an audience, but then spends the conclusion trashing pop and rock as "plastic" music, listeners of which need to be apparently re-educated to appreciate better music. This despite the fact that pop and rock music has already achieved exactly what he is advocating. It has integrated avant-garde elements within a traditional framework and delivered it to a mass audience. Maybe he should consider learning from these genres, instead of trashing them.

Sure, there's plenty of generic, uninspired pop and rock. But there's plenty of generic, uninspired classic musical as well. And dig even a little deeper, and you find many, many pop rock, and hip-hop artists who are wildly experimental, yet still find an audience. Techniques like sampling and the use of electronics were pioneered by the avant-garde, but it is pop, rock and hip-hop artists who have taken them further and done the hard work of figuring out how they can be incorporated into a traditional (and new) melodic frameworks that actually have an appeal to the listener.

Re: The Music of the Future

#60

Post by empath75 »

beat wrote: post #37
iammyIP wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disco is not dead in a pop context? Discos are full. 4/4 Beat is the norm. Ass shaking is standard. It's everywhere. The essence of disco and ass shaking is the essence of pop. Add sonified marriage/breakup proposals to it and then you got all pop in a basket. Hiphop is not the driving force anymore, also it did not care about harmony at all in a special way. Hiphops focus has always been on rythm. The essence of hip…

Disco isn't just 4/4... it's a particular 16th note hi-hat groove, conventions around the use of string synths, etc. It's a stylistic period piece, and the underlying rhythms aren't widely heard these days. I don't know why you think hip hop has been "culturally annihilated". I hear it as an incredibly dynamic and forward-looking genre.

House music is 'just' disco played on an 808. Or that's how it started anyway.
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