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Re: What do you think is necessary in order to have anexcellentcomposition?
Quoting Daryl Shawn <highhorse@mhorse.com>:
> ...the opinion that art is anything that is created with the /pure
> /intention of evoking an /aesthetic /reaction...
> But I don't entirely agree that the merit of Art is based on
> subjective, isolated emotional reaction. I don't think it fallacious to
> state as a point of fact that Bach was a great composer, Shakespeare a
> great writer, Van Gogh a great painter, Michelangelo a great sculptor,
> all of whom created great works. My own emotional reaction isn't a
> solid basis to argue otherwise. There are criteria other then personal
> emotion to judge art; innovation, craft, and the perception of value
> over a period of time, fr'instance.
>
> Having said that, nobody can tell me what I /should/ like, or what
> /should/ have value to me. I'm not a fan of Mozart, yet to label his
> work as trash isn't for me to say.
This post resonates with many of my feelings about art -- in fact, I
feel the same way about Mozart. I appreciate it however I am not
thrilled with it. I find Bach thrilling. For me to assert that "Bach
is better than Mozart" would be to state my own bias rather than
anything useful about the music.
I tend to approach the creation of music as a "1% inspiration, 99%
perspiration" activity. However, the hope is that the listeners, upon
hearing the finished work, will be moved in some way without being
aware of the "perspiration" aspect of the work.
Thus, I approached the question "What do you think is necessary in
order to have an excellent composition" as a technical question -- a
kind of composer-to-composer dialog.
For instance, if I hear someone doing great looping work and I want to
do the same thing, I will likely want to know what kind of equipment
and setup the person is using. I may want to ask the person how they
manage certain things (say pedal presses or avoiding feedback from
microphones, etc). I will listen to the music to figure out how it is
organized.
This is not to deny a spiritual and/or aesthetic goal -- most of us
hope that people will like or love our music. We hope our music
reaches people at some level.
My statement in an earlier post: "Be true to yourself" was meant as a
possible
way to reach listeners and do music that may be regarded as "excellent".
A subjective statement about music such as "that music is great" or
"that music is garbage" is a statement about the listener's reaction
to the music. There have been times where I have played Bach fugues
and a few people complained. Their complaint didn't make the fugues
"bad" -- the complaint had more to do with a gap between what they
expected and what I played. Some people simply don't like
contrapuntal music.
Perhaps I should have played Mozart. :)
-- Kevin