Re: Re: The importance of accidents in music.

[Todd Elliott <toddbert@gmail.com>]

One persons 'vibe without a statement' is another person's statement. I think of the stuff I make, which, as of late has mostly consisted of long drones, as having a great deal of emotional content; but I could easily understand why someone wouldn't think that. And although Cage might be maddened by this, I find his late period 'number pieces' (particularly the 'one's) to be weirdly moving; again, I wouldn't expect everyone to see it this way.

My problem with melody (and I have no real problem with melody-- everyone likes to sing a jaunty tune now and again) is that in the wrong hands it tends to lead you around by the nose. In the right hands, of course, it's sublime. But no one's ever going to agree on whos hands are the right ones. That's what makes music so interesting.

T

On Sat, Aug 17, 2013 at 12:49 PM, Rick Walker <looppool@cruzio.com> wrote:

On 8/14/2013 7:35 AM, Sylvain Poitras wrote:

On Wed, Aug 14, 2013 at 9:48 AM, <looppool@cruzio.com <mailto:looppool@cruzio.com>> wrote:

    I love John Cages' definition of music as being "organized sound".


To be precise, this definition does not originate with John Cage, but with Edgar Varèse.  Although he uses the definition at some point (in his Credo), it is in contradiction with his later music through which he displayed a much broader definition of music that did not necessarily involve "organization" (through chance operations) or "sound" (his silent compositions).

Some interesting ideas for further practice in the rest of your post...  please get a webcam!

Sylvain

I still like the definition.        I have to say, too, that, though I enjoyed the creative possibilities of Cage's experiments with chance in his music,
I never loved the pieces he actually 'composed' with them.    I suppose I'm a formalist at heart.    Give me his Music for Toy Piano and his
prepared Piano pieces................god forbid,  they have actual 'melodies' in them.

It's interesting but Ambient music has had a huge impact on this particular community and music in general for that matter.

I love a lot of music that is atmospheric but I've started to be really bored by music that just has a vibe without a statement.
I know that puts me in a rather small club in our beatuful community,  but I've started to really want to hear a good melody again;
a theme that seems composed and well thought out.

In my jazz work, I've been revisiting a lot of themes from motion pictures (Theme from Chinatown,  Theme from Laurence of
Arabia,  Love Theme from Spartacus,  some of the film score music Thomas Newman wrote for American Beauty and the Shawshank Redemption.

I really love a lot of jazz, but i realize that the jazz I love has to have a great 'head' to it for me to really get off playing it.
Endless rounds of piano, bass, drum solos just aren't so interesting.

Just musing, but that's what comes up for me with this thread.

Rick

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