mcgill composer, I hope you enjoy your career at burger king.
Because there is no way you will become anything as a composer if you can simply throw out the music of Stockhausen, Xenakis, Penderecki, Ligeti, etc... as "sh*t noise", and still try to make a career for yourself as a composer.
Unless of of course, you are not trying to be a composer of music outside of film and maybe tv... what I mean is, even though you might come up with works that mimick the past (as you seen caught up in the 19th century and before)... you will end up with works that have 0 artistic value, copy's of copy's if you will. Its like going into a museum and trying to mold something to look like a 5th century vase. Congrats on being able to do it, but trying to sell it as a 5th century vase will get you thrown in jail. In this case, you will forever be writting music that has allready been written.
I dont mean the avant garde is the ONLY way to express yourself, not at all, Im using them here as an example simply because the thread was. But, you have to consider that, if you are trying to simply have people listen to your works in mass, you might have choosen the wrong career... one of personal self expression, and not of trying to appeal to the most humans possible.
Also, your entire argument on "nature" is actually untrue.
If you go away from the history of Tonal music, you will realize that in NATURE itself, almost no events occur in any sort of tonal context.
Have you ever gone into a forest and heard 1000's of birds singing and chirpping? Name me the key they are in?
Have you ever stopped in traffic and heard 30 guys honk at you at the same time? Why dont you notate that rhythm for me?
Point being, "nature" as you call it, or, the organization of music into sounds "what most people think is music", doesnt have to reflect lyrical content. In fact, lyrical content is less part of nature then the very "sound masses" you describe.
Im not rejecting one idea or the other (clusters vs triads, melody vs non melody), what Im saying is, your idea that nature is implying that music should be tonal is actually far from the truth. Once you consider that events occur in nature (sound events in this case), with no sense of organization to each other. A forest sounds like a forest, your ears can hear it. It doesnt sound like a symphony in Gm, and it doesnt sound like a ballade in G major.
When Penderecki transcribed the stop of a train into what became "threnos", he was doing something that is totally within your hearing ability. You might not like it (I love it)... but, to say its against nature is untrue.
Whether its the mechanical (machines and modern sounds), or the true sounds of nature... TONAL contexts are short and far between.
In a way, if you want to think this way, you might as well consider the entire TONAL system "the farce" (I dont think it is, but you get what Im saying).
You talk about manipulation, the entire harmonic series is full of non tempered intervals, the entire Well Temp system is indeed a man made correction, so that music could be "un-naturally" transposed.
The proof is in the birds. Transcribe nature, and you come closer to Xenakis then Bach... tranpose modern life and you come closer to Penderecki's early works then Chopin.
Just different view points on this subject. This "anti-modernist" views on these boards are pretty common, its expected. I dont know if the avg person will ever understand half these things, most of the people on here are either kids on piano forums or amture players and amature composers. Its easy for them to destroy works they arent ready to understand on any level. After they come to understand, they might choose to not listen, but most of the smart ones will stop the critiques.
Topic: Overrated?