The world's most challenging music question

Night_Music · Regular Joined: 28 Apr 2006 Posts: 109 Location: Sydney

Ok, having studied a BMus in composition for nearly two semesters I have come across a music question that I find is impossible to answer:

Does anyone really enjoy atonal, polystylistic, avante guard music?

You see the short answer to this is no, because music is meant to be all about sound and no one likes listening to sound that makes you ears bleed...so why then does it exist?

I'm leaning towards a departure in general composition skills and a massive inflation of ego amongst the music minority...but I'm sure deep down it's just like the emperors new clothes...they're saying they enjoy it because it makes them look superior - they're seeing something that not many others (or if any) can see.

Anyway discuss.

Night_Music · Regular Joined: 28 Apr 2006 Posts: 109 Location: Sydney

Oh and just to add I should have put arguably the world's most challenging etc in the title...

confuzzled kc · Posted: Mon Sep 25, 2006 8:22 pm Post subject:

I dunno,
I actually like some of the avant garde choral music, and i think that some concepts like 3:44 by John Cage, having a piece entirely on 'silence' is smart, but when it comes to hearing some of the concepts put to music, it's just all too weird for us.
I definitely don't like atonal music, and absolutely hate the Con teachers who are forcing us to write atonally.

Night_Music · Regular Joined: 28 Apr 2006 Posts: 109 Location: Sydney

I like Phillip Glass and Peter Sculthorpe...but I'm talking about that stuff that we listen to in comp class...maybe we can somehow upload a track so people here can get an idea of what it sounds like, because there's just so much. I don't know why it exists it's just so dreadful.

Constaneum · Posted: Mon Sep 25, 2006 9:31 pm Post subject:

Well. In my honest opinion, no matter what kind of music it is, it sure has its uniqueness. Some ppl like it as it sounded different than other genres. For instance, I dont really like heavy metal music but that kind of style is unique in a way that makes some ppl like it. =D We just have to live with it even though we dislike it. =p

Night_Music · Regular Joined: 28 Apr 2006 Posts: 109 Location: Sydney

This is true. I agree with you there. Avante Guard/atonality is definatly unique, and there is some stuff out there of this genre that I like...but we're not talking about uniqueness here, we're talking about how someone could (emphasis on could) actually enjoy listening to the sound of it.

This is the anti melody...the world where listening to microphone feedback and a great conglomeration of extended techniques with the worst kind of dissonance ontop of just totally and purely ugly sounds is music. It's one thing to appreciate it, which believe me, I do in terms of some of its conceptual designs - take John Cage or Phillip Glass, but it's another thing to really enjoy it and get emotionally moved by it. My question is if the listener really likes listening to it as in put it on in the afternoon and sit back and listen to it kind of thing. At least heavy metal has a melody.

Just to add, where Confuzzled kc and myself study, our teachers would say that music by John Williams and/or any other film composer is not unique at all...and if they heard Nobuo Uematsu, they would probably not like him either...they believe that they (Williams and co) have no composing skills whatsoever and constantly criticise there use of tonality by saying that it has been done. Mind you I do not share this view because music is a unique thing as you say...and all music should be appreciated.

chocohi · Mega Forum Addict! Joined: 09 Sep 2005 Posts: 518

19th and 20th century music...equivalent to abstract art... usually sounds crap, but the odd piece can be quite appealing for some reason.

usually i think it can be put to good use in a film or something...there are some atmospheres that only this type of music create,

but as for laying back and listening to it...never done it and doubt i would...i dont think i listen to anything thats atonal recreationally at all for the most part

Night_Music · Regular Joined: 28 Apr 2006 Posts: 109 Location: Sydney

Listen to 21st century abstract music. This stuff can't be put to anything...I'll try and upload something so you guys can hear it. This stuff literally makes your ears bleed...mind you I do like 19th and early 20th century music...a lot of good composers, puccini, debussy, shoshtakovitch, messiaen...lots of others. It's just about around the 50s where it began to get kinda weird

chocohi · Mega Forum Addict! Joined: 09 Sep 2005 Posts: 518

im only familiar with debussy, but hes more of an impressionist at the same time...am i getting the right label here? xp

and his use of atonality isn't highly obscure either

these days people just go waaaaay to extreme...i had to do some stupid 12 tone piano piece composition in class last year. sounded okay actually, but it was crap not being able to write a melody...

infact in the past 2 years of high school music, i wrote probably 4 bars worth of melody, and it was just some small exercise >.<

Night_Music · Regular Joined: 28 Apr 2006 Posts: 109 Location: Sydney

12 tone can work and sound nice if it is arranged in an interesting pattern, but yeah, most composers try to make it sound completly random. These days it's almost like composers are trying to outdo each other in ugliness. Not to mention, I question what music is these days...in one of my analysis classes, we "watched" a piece of music, which was a film of a mans legs walking along a pavement cut up into three seperate screens. The only musical terms that was used in it was the arrangment of the screens followed a complex rhythmic pattern. We watched it for 5 minuets...is this music to you?

It took the music world hundreds of years to discover tonality and from there it took additional hundreds of years to fully understand and appreciate it...it's like theres a cycle...we're now trying to reverse what took such a long time of music evolution. I can understand why music like this came about because it had to, we couldn't say we completly knew music until avante guard music came about. But now that it has, everything has been done. So I don't see why teachers at the con should criticise tonality for being clique because atonality etc is just as clique, everything has been discovered, there isn't much else left to discover, so I think they should just let us be and compose how we want to. Heh heh, this thread has become my venting session over my composing angst...please ignore me.

187 · Posted: Tue Sep 26, 2006 9:50 pm Post subject:

Personally, I don't enjoy the "try-hard" modern, experimental style that seems to dominate Western Art music. (Is that what it's called these days?) However, I've found that I can now listen to atonal pieces, hip-hop, rap and other genres I generally despise with some degree of tolerance. I have realised that attempting to ignore and block out the unwanted sounds is a reasonably effective method of neutralising the brain-melting effects of the new age propaganda.

On that note (no pun intended), is it possible to become used to clashing notes? I sometimes feel that if I listen to a horribly atonal piece enough times, its dissonance begins to lose its effect, making it moderately listenable. I find that scary.

As for the original question, do people really, really, REALLY enjoy such clashing notes, or is it simply a way of indirectly saying, "Har har har, I am more musically refined than you because I like undesirable noises playing in an endless and often random sequence for 3 minutes! If I'm feeling very experimental, it might go for 23 minutes!"?

Night_Music · Regular Joined: 28 Apr 2006 Posts: 109 Location: Sydney

Amen to that Lily!!! And as for listening to disonance, I guess it all depends. It's like if I repeat the word bloody bloody bloody bloody bloody bloody bloody bloody bloody bloody bloody bloody bloody bloody bloody bloody bloody bloody bloody bloody bloody bloody bloody bloody bloody bloody bloody bloody bloody bloody bloody bloody bloody bloody bloody bloody...
you see if you read all of those bloodies, it by the end of reading it doesn't feel like a word. Just like atonal clashes in avante guarde music get a sence of normality when it's viewed in that context. You do kinda get used to it...even though it still sounds diabolically dreadful.