Ultimate Modernism-hater discussions + Vents

[viking]

Ditto
(except I don't love him)

[cygnusdei]

I think it's beneficial if we can come up with some basic principles that we ALL can agree with, sort of like a common denominator.

My 2 cents: if something is out of the mainstream, isn't it expected that it will be less appreciated, demographic-wise? Isn't this a fact of life - why does it seem to be objectionable? Classical music is already out of the mainstream in terms of the general public. Based on quotes by proponents of 'modern' music here, there seems to be yet a mainstream in classical music ('Beethoven' is mentioned a lot). As modern/post-modern/contemporary music is out of the mainstream classical music (again, I'm merely reiterating the views expressed here), is it not expected that it is less appreciated? What is the problem here?

[pies]

Some of the youtube comments pregnant dog about how the piece lacks rhythm, harmony, etc... but I think that it's definitely got some rhythmic drive. Certainly unconventional, but it still has it's own kind of swagger. It reminds me of how Dillinger Escape Plan's earlier music sounded compared to other rock acts. The harmonies are borderline non-existent and the rhythmic assaults and time shifts are endless. It immediately appears to be noise, but it's later revealed to be intricately structured noise, which means that it's still composition and shouldn't be degraded simply because your senses don't immediately gel with it.

This is why I love the piece.  It's basically Dillinger Escape Plan on a piano.

this one's a rather footsy piece:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyy3CRuMQnc

[mephisto]

I think it's beneficial if we can come up with some basic principles that we ALL can agree with, sort of like a common denominator.

My 2 cents: if something is out of the mainstream, isn't it expected that it will be less appreciated, demographic-wise? Isn't this a fact of life - why does it seem to be objectionable? Classical music is already out of the mainstream in terms of the general public. Based on quotes by proponents of 'modern' music here, there seems to be yet a mainstream in classical music ('Beethoven' is mentioned a lot). As modern/post-modern/contemporary music is out of the mainstream classical music (again, I'm merely reiterating the views expressed here), is it not expected that it is less appreciated? What is the problem here?

What you write here seams perfectly rational, and should be apparent to everyone.

[indutrial]

What is the problem here?

As if it hasn't been stated about 100 times in the past few months, the problem is that, despite the fact that classical is a non-mainstream genre, a lot of the opinions here sound just as bad and unsubstantiated as the pejorative tripe that one could read written about rock albums in Blender or Spin magazine. Like annoying critics, people here will swing their opinion about recklessly not caring whether they upend a thread or steer the conversation into a another god-damned flame-war. It shows a distinct lack of tolerance and credibility when these annoying and self-absorbed individuals feel the need to stake out the territory of their tastes and lash out at people on the outside. It's okay to dislike modern music or to choose to not listen to jazz, but neither of those should be interpreted as an open invitation to start talking crap and trolling threads. As on any forum, that is the problem.

[cygnusdei]

So it is acceptable to state, as a matter of preference, one's dislike for certain music?

Is this something that we ALL can agree on?

[webern78]

could someone explain the difference between the two please?

Modernism = braking off with tradition. 

Post-Modernism = braking everything else.

[webern78]

It immediately appears to be noise, but it's later revealed to be intricately structured noise

Or rather, you can convince yourself that there is a structure, even if there's none.

I believe they call it "cognitive dissonance".

[ole]

I just think people are wasting their time arguing to and listening to modern music. It doesn't make sense. Just forget for a moment all your prejudices and ideas about music, then contrast a Chopin ballade with some of the "compositions" posted here like the one where is nothing but scream. Which one moves you, which one doesn't? I think in your heart of hearts...you know the answer...

[thalbergmad]

Chopin does not move everybody.

Just when we were getting somewhere........................

[tehpro]

I just think people are wasting their time arguing to and listening to modern music. It doesn't make sense. Just forget for a moment all your prejudices and ideas about music, then contrast a Chopin ballade with some of the "compositions" posted here like the one where is nothing but scream. Which one moves you, which one doesn't? I think in your heart of hearts...you know the answer...

I think they do know but they are too busy trying to make themselves look sophisticated to listen anything normal. I think we can safely assume that most of the modern music "lovers" here are like 19 years old and try to pretend they know the meaning of life and everything else in the universe and have found out that crappy noise produced with orchestra is the key to understanding everything.

[pies]

I just think people are wasting their time arguing to and listening to modern music. It doesn't make sense. Just forget for a moment all your prejudices and ideas about music, then contrast a Chopin ballade with some of the "compositions" posted here like the one where is nothing but scream. Which one moves you, which one doesn't? I think in your heart of hearts...you know the answer...

I think in your head of heads (or lack thereof), deep down inside, you know that saying modern music doesn't make sense is a ridiculous overgeneralization.  Or perhaps you're retarded.

[thalbergmad]

Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[pies]

I think they do know but they are too busy trying to make themselves look sophisticated to listen anything normal. I think we can safely assume that most of the modern music "lovers" here are like 19 years old and try to pretend they know the meaning of life and everything else in the universe and have found out that crappy noise produced with orchestra is the key to understanding everything.

I think we can safely assume that most of those who like modern compositions also listen to a fair amount of mainstream and 'normal' music, and that this is not a matter of sophistication or elitism.  If there is any elitism, it seems to be rooted in those who denounce modern music, as seen by postings like this

I think they do know but they are too busy trying to make themselves look sophisticated to listen anything normal.

where they seem to have completely understood the mind of the modern music enthusiast, pity or ridicule them based on these dumb assertions, and know which music is somehow 'better'.

[pies]

MY NAEM THALBEERGFAG MY AM CLEVER AND WISE MY AM NO WHAT IS RIGHT WHY YYOU DUIMB MY AM RETARDEDA ALSO
P.S>  I FAT

THAL-FAT-ALGORITHM FOR FINNISSY JOKE:
1. START: "FINNISSY SOUNDS LIKE..."
2. MENTION DUMB ANIMAL
3. PUT DUMB ANIMAL IN HILARIOUS MUSICAL SITUATION
4. COMPILE
5. SMUGLY LAUGH AT YOUR PATHETIC EXISTENCE

[ahinton]

I loathe the very term "modernism", since it can be seen to imply (albeit not always correctly) some kind of proto-élitist sectarianism on the part of some of those who use it. As for "vents", there need to be a few in this thread just to let abit of fresh air in. This utterly absurd and wholly contemptible notion that no on can possibly appreciate Xenakis as well as Beethoven, or Ferneyhough as well as Chopin, or Finnissy as well as Pinto (there's one for you, Thal!) is just the kind of thing that's destined to ensure that threads such as this one are replete with entrenched positions, spleen-venting and all the other kind of accreted rubbish without which music, above all things, could well do.

Best,

Alistair

[indutrial]

Chopin does not move everybody.

Just when we were getting somewhere........................

Chopin's music is very moving, but so are lots of the post-1900 pieces I've heard... But I must just be some pretentious quack for daring to lump the two together in a category of things that I'm capable of appreciating.

While I'm being such a psuedo-intellectual fake I may as well just say that Webern, Tehpro, and Ole could certainly be lumped together into the categories "retroactive", "stubborn", and "annoying." I won't say that any of you are retarded, because retarded people have a damn good excuse for being difficult in intellectual situations.

[cygnusdei]

Here's another spin:

I suppose some of us who are proponents of modern music are religious. What kind of music do you think is heard in heaven? Does it include all spectrum of music? Only a subset?
PS: this is not an attempt to start religious discussion. I just thought there could be interesting hidden dichotomies to be revealed here.

[thalbergmad]

Changed my mind.

He ain't worth it.

Thal

[webern78]

you know that saying modern music doesn't make sense is a ridiculous overgeneralization.

True, but since the progressives here are stepping in defense of music that make no sense it's a bit redundant for you to point that out.

 

[ahinton]

So, Thal - "you have better things to do"? - (it's quote from Norman Douglas; go find in in that 3-CD set of whatever-it-is that you allegedly need all those beers and valium to get through!...)

Best,

Alistair

[indutrial]

True, but since the progressives here are stepping in defense of music that make no sense it's a bit redundant for you to point that out.
 

Does everything need to make sense to be acceptable as art. Doesn't progress usually go hand in hand with the growing pains of people coming to grips with things that are irrational and unusual. Does everything have to be immediately discernable and easy to gauge into to ensure that you're never threatened. I wish you would just retreat back to your boring hidey-hole and stop squeaking in my ear.

[cygnusdei]

Is pianostreet an anarchy?

[ahinton]

Is pianostreet an anarchy?

Am I finding it possible not to yawn?...

Best,

Alistair

[cygnusdei]

This discussion would benefit from a moderator.

[daro]

I suppose some of us who are proponents of modern music are religious. What kind of music do you think is heard in heaven? Does it include all spectrum of music? Only a subset?

Let's see, 50 years ago, the religious right here in America declared categorically that rock 'n' roll was the work of the devil, so I guess one wouldn't hear that stuff. (The blues, also, was often denounced in similar terms).

OTOH, there's this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ye3ecDYxOkg, which Lawrence Welk himself declared was "a modern spiritual", so I suppose it would fit right in up there.

Does everything need to make sense to be acceptable as art. Doesn't progress usually go hand in hand with the growing pains of people coming to grips with things that are irrational and unusual. Does everything have to be immediately discernable and easy to gauge into to ensure that you're never threatened.

I think people forget that in Chopin's time, there were plenty who considered his music to be excessively harsh and unlistenable. Going back a few decades earlier, it would also not have been unusual to pick up a newspaper and read something like, "This latest work by Herr von Beethoven is exactly the kind of senseless noise one would expect from someone who's deaf."

Plus ca change.

yd

[michael_langlois]

Is anyone missing our resident pseudo-intellectual troll?

[cygnusdei]

I think people forget that in Chopin's time, there were plenty who considered his music to be excessively harsh and unlistenable.

Textbook anecdotes seem to suggest the opposite, that is a myth that " ... Chopin's playing  was like that of one dreaming rather than awake - scarcely audible in its continual pianissimos and una cordas ..." That was of course an account of Carl Mikuli (Chopin's pupil) who promptly set the record straight.

A more fitting example of a composer not appreciated in his own time would Bach, but it was because he was perceived as old-fashioned, not because he was too progressive.

[webern78]

Does everything need to make sense to be acceptable as art.

Yes. The first precept for art is that it must imitate nature, which means it must conform to forms and structures which exists within the realms of what is humanly perceivable. Those forms can be as complex or as simple as you want, they still need to follow basic structural precepts.

Doesn't progress usually go hand in hand with the growing pains of people coming to grips with things that are irrational and unusual.

For starters, "progress" isn't the principal function of art and indeed many of the greatest composers in history made a sour name for themselves by actively resisting change which, if not irrational or unusual they probably saw as indulgent and banal. That said, while it is true that all innovation has met it's due share of general rejection and mistrust, it does not stand to reason that everything that generates rejection or mistrust will, nay, must eventually lead to general acceptance and confirmation, and just because innovation was seen as "irrational" at first it doesn't imply that it actually ever was, unlike many modern compositions, which ARE irrational, and will stay that way for ever.

Does everything have to be immediately discernable and easy to gauge into to ensure that you're never threatened. I wish you would just retreat back to your boring hidey-hole and stop squeaking in my ear.

Strawman much? We are merely asking that music be at all discernible, not immediately so. Bach isn't exactly easily comprehended either and a lot of superficial listeners seem to have an hell of a time coming to terms with his music. Indeed, classical music has a whole is rarely accepted by the general public and will probably remain a purely elitist affair until the end of time. Yet, those composers are still well known, well liked and still followed generations after their passing.

Heck, even several not-so-easy contemporary composers have met with relative commercial success (a useful meter to determine accessibility among the general population), such as Ligeti, or Schnittke, which implies complexity isn't the problem here.

[cygnusdei]

Does everything need to make sense to be acceptable as art. Doesn't progress usually go hand in hand with the growing pains of people coming to grips with things that are irrational and unusual. Does everything have to be immediately discernable and easy to gauge into to ensure that you're never threatened. I wish you would just retreat back to your boring hidey-hole and stop squeaking in my ear.

If I may offer an analogy of classical music being similar to pornography (I know ), as both are forms of non-mainstream art (pornography as art is debateable, but bear with me). Within pornography itself there is a mainstream; what you'd call vanilla porn. Outside the mainstream there is a genre for everyone's fancy - fetish, kinky, voyeurism, what have you. BUT there is a definite line that even the most permissive culture would not allow, that is child pornography. I'm sure proponents of pedophilia have convincing arguments for it, but the boundaries seem to be pretty absolute and universal on this one. Any other porn may be permissible, but kiddie porn is ILLEGAL.

Could it be that there are analogous boundaries in classical music that just shouldn't be crossed? Could it be that not just anything new can be progress? Could music be perverted?

[ole]

Hey, I notice something: You guys seem to have more fun arguing about modern music and whether it is good or bad than actually listening to it. Me I don't want to spend much time arguing about it, I'd rather listen to and play good music. If Stockhausen, Xenakis and others haven't inspired you to stop posting so much on the internet so you could go play their music then maybe the "haters" really do have a point. They are spending more time with piano playing and music.

I think if I stopped seeing threads like this I might be convinced the modern music guys are actually having fun out there, playing all that stuff...until then, I'll be under the impression they've all got some kind of musical heartburn.

[pies]

If I may offer an analogy of classical music being similar to pornography (I know ), as both are forms of non-mainstream art (pornography as art is debateable, but bear wi