Re: Musical languistics - Mass Reply

 --- James Worlton skrzypszy:

> > Have you ever listened to polyphonic vocal music
> > from Georgia?
>
> I personally have not. But my interest has been
> piqued! Anything in particular that you would
> recommend?
Later, I will browse the Internet if I can find some sound samples. For now,
let me just tell you that there are some excellent Georgian choirs around: the
Rustavi choir, the Kutaisi Ensemble, etc. I also have a recording at home of
fieldwork recordings.

> > But seriously, James: what is the music you write
> > like?
>
> My website has some one-minute MP3 samples of a few
> works. Unfortunately it has not been substantially
> updated for quite some time:
> http://www.geocities.com/jamesworlton
I agree with Sally: I very much like "Through the edge". A sensual work! It
sounds very French, and I don't think that impression is only due to the
instrumentation.
I like the fragments of your electro-acoustic compositions too. Very
athmospheric, if that is a word in English. However, I've some trouble
understanding the fourth piece, Aliquot-one.

Two questions:
- What is a Disklavier?
- Is there any particular reason why the title "Concerto for Organ and
Orchestra" is not italicised? (I'm curious about that piece, BTW. I have a
strong weakness for organ concertoes by Poulenc and ... what's his name?
Malcolm Williamson or Peter Dickinson?)

> The really effective composer will define in the
> musical context of a particular piece what
> "consonance" and "dissonance" means to the piece, and
> then compose with those definitions informing all
> compositional decisions. Before this generates a
> flurry of disagreement, *grin*, I do feel that there
> are universal consonances and dissonances in
> acoustics. However, I am not convinced that the same
> exists in music.
Well, I you will allow me to launch a terrible cliché: everything is relative.
Indeed, how dissonant a dissonant is depends on the context.
BTW: Is there any difference between music and acoustics? If you ask me, a
dissonant in acoustics is also a dissonant in music. Nothing wrong with
dissonants in music, of course :) .

> > For me, music that
> > doesn't have "bit" is not
> > worth listening to.
>
> I think you meant "bite" :). This is what I meant by
> "interest".
Yep. Typo! ;)

> I don't agree with your disagreement, however. :)
> Certainly I have had those thoughts, that why bother
> with performers who are likely to mess up when a
> computer/tape is "perfect." That is not the reason I
> write the music though.
I can certainly understand that :) . But I know that many composers of
electronic music were guided by such principles.

> Well, I'm in a minority then! Actually, in the US it
> appears that the split between pure tape and tape + is
> about even.
Quite. Don't misunderstand me: I am not biased at all against electro-acoustic
music. In fact, I have heard to lot of it, and I participated in many
performancees in which the tape played an important role.
I was a tad too quick when I wrote that only a small minority would still write
music for tape only. And I clearly didn't say that I don't like such music. It
really depends who writes it. For example, I like very much the music of Jan
Boerman (the pioneer of electronic music in the Netherlands) and Ton Bruynèl
(who wrote only music for soloists/ensembles/choirs with tape.
I also like Oriental-Occidental by Xenakis.
In my opinion a composition for tape only can serve excellently as an overture
to a concert. But I would not likely go to a concert without any performers at
all.

> I don't disagree with anything you have said. So I
> should clarify what I meant. What I meant was that if
> a composer always tries to break new territory they
> are likely to produce little. Certainly composers
> should always try new things. And most do, but within
> their own "language." Composers should always try to
> improve their craft (yes, craft). Thereby their art
> becomes more "artistic."
Partly agreed. The bottleneck is the word "new" (in: "always try new things").
Who decides what is new? What is new for one composer can be old stuff for
another. Nowadays, very few things have never been tried yet, and if you ask
me, if they haven't been tried there must have been a good reason for that. I
try to write music that suits me, that's all. I completely don't care if it is
new or not, and if it could also have been written in the 1930s or the 1880s,
that's fine to me. As long as it is well-written and recognisably mine.

Jan

=====
"Originality is the art of concealing your source." - Franklin P. Jones

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