Reading Music

[Declan]

"open" and "clear" mind are not quite the same thing.

 

So I agree, the social or historical knowledge of the background to the work is an enhancement, but not essential. I suppose the point I'm grasping for is that the creator will find it difficult to leave that at the door and he certainly can't leave his musical knowledge at the door, and create as if he'd never heard any music before and this was the only piece of music that will ever exist (wonderful idea though that may be), and a listener can't hear music as if it was the first music they'd ever heard.

[doc.fixit]

For what it's worth............when I'm playing blues or a blues style version of music that I like, my wife always says, 'that's not how it supposed to be played/ sung!'.

 

I try to point out that music is personal and the way I play/sing is how I interpret the original sound. I wouldn't say I could 'read' music although I do understand about chords, sharps, flats, octaves and I know the stave lines and spaces so can slowly, very slowly, work out a melody......ish!

 

I am slowly learning tablature, after about 50 years of trying.

 

Whatever........ I really, really enjoy MY music and fortunately, so do a few others, amazingly.

[The Sick Moon]

Whatever........ I really, really enjoy MY music and fortunately, so do a few others, amazingly.

 

But not your wife.

[doc.fixit]

I think you'll find I didn't say she doesn't like the music, she just doesn't think it's correct!

[The Sick Moon]

I think you'll find I didn't say she doesn't like the music, she just doesn't think it's correct!

 

Interesting. What does she say about your lovemaking?

[JulesVerneTheory]

Reading/writing music is becoming less important as music becomes more focused on textures and less about conventional instruments :

 

There are really two parts to written music : the notes, and the way you map them to an known instrument (along with additional written guidance).

 

This only works if you have a known instrument at the reproduction side : for example a guitar or piano.

 

If you have something more modern, like computers and synthesizers, The notes and direction don't allow you to reproduce the piece of music, as there is no way to notate texture, ambiance, overtones or internal and external waveform movement over time.

 

The same if partially true of electric guitar where you are using effects to alter its harmonic spectrum.

 

So in thee case of classical music : you have a known set instruments and tonality, so you can code and decode the music through the score.

 

In Rock music, you can approximate the piece through musical notation, but not fully code and decode.

 

In pure electronic music, the instrumentation is so abstracted, that presented with a score, the reconstruction would be so far from the original piece, it would likely be unrecognizable.

 

Its probably not true that the best musicians cant read music : its probably true that the most interesting new music contains enough textural and ambient information as to lower the value of traditional notation to near zero.

[doc.fixit]

 

I think you'll find I didn't say she doesn't like the music, she just doesn't think it's correct!

Interesting. What does she say about your lovemaking?

 

Why do you want to know? Are you a voyeur or just sick and perverted?

[Stu Peters]

JVT makes a good point. I'm not a classical music buff, but I like a good tune so downloaded Elgar's 'Nimrod' as a midi file (like a digital piano roll to the non-musicians). There are around 16 tracks/instruments in the file, but they're not labelled.

 

Sounds like a Stylophone if you try to play it in WMP so I thought I'd learn a bit about orchestral arrangements and production and opened it in ProTools instead, and have spent hours swapping French horns for cellos (etc) to make it sound like a proper orchestra. Most rewarding.

[JulesVerneTheory]

Its an interesting subject for even classical music : so for example when playing Baroque period pieces, should you use contemporary instruments to correctly decode the bowing techniques included in the scores, or approximate them with modern violins ?

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baroque_violin

 

When you are doing computer recreations of orchestra's knowing the instruments is critical, as to swap French Horns for Chellos is not possible in real life due to the different ranges available on the world instruments (although the computer can simulate notes outside the natural ranges).

 

You also have to use all the "assumed" info like the acoustics of a hall, how far away an instrument is from the listener, where player sites in the orchestra, (left or right), how many instruments are doubling the parts etc.

 

It is consistently surprising how little information there is in a score, compared to the information in an audio recording : notation is designed to be as simple as possible so you can read it in real time, so its a massively compressed data stream.

[The Sick Moon]

have spent hours swapping French horns for cellos (etc) to make it sound like a proper orchestra.

 

Doesn't a proper orchestra have French horns? I never knew that!

[woolley]

I'm not a classical music buff, but I like a good tune

Me too. I think this bit of Mozart is one of his best pieces but so obscure. For a 240 year old it's pretty lively. Superb!

 

[Bananaman]

There is a dreadful snobbery in music, worse so than any pony club. Music to me is what makes you enjoy the tune, evoke memories, smash some shapes on the floor or just have a laugh. One of my faves is Blink 182. Love 'em. Hear them. I go garrity. I also like Tom Waits. I will also bust a phat move to Chicane, there's no musical writing to any Massive Attack but they do bring out some brill tunes. Just because someone can't sit with a feather pen and a score sheet doesn't stop them from creating ace tunes.

 

God is a DJ!

 

Word.

[2bees]

As if! DJs are tossers(mostly)

[Shake me up Judy]

Bloody 'ell ! Just opened this thread and wondered if I'm still on Manx Forums.

 

Mozart, Mahler, Tom Waits, Allan Holdsworth, Art Tatum, Dave Brubeck, Elgar.......

 

Makes a change from Declan's subtle discernment of obscure Indie bands

[Declan]

There is a dreadful snobbery in music, worse so than any pony club. Music to me is what makes you enjoy the tune, evoke memories, smash some shapes on the floor or just have a laugh. One of my faves is Blink 182. Love 'em. Hear them. I go garrity. I also like Tom Waits. I will also bust a phat move to Chicane, there's no musical writing to any Massive Attack but they do bring out some brill tunes. Just because someone can't sit with a feather pen and a score sheet doesn't stop them from creating ace tunes.

 

God is a DJ!

 

Word.

Strangely, the snobbiest post in the thread.

 

There's an awful lot of inverse snobbery behind dismissing descernment, taste, knowledge as snobbery. There's good music created in all genres (some takes more digging than others), and in music that was created using every sort of instrument, skill and technique, that's created with a high art concept or mass appeal and for every sort of brow (low, middle, high, mono etc.)

 

But that's not the same as blindly accepting everything as equally good. There needs to be personal descernment and it's fantastic when people say "I like this music because..." Or "I hate that music because ..." It opens you up to new ways of regarding music.

 

I don't think I've ever been argued out if liking a band because of others criticism of them, even when it's valid, but in countering that view it does help crystallise in my mind what I like about that music and this can lead to a deeper understanding or appreciation of the band. And of course someone saying what they like about a band can make me see something new in them.

 

What people who complain about music snobbery are doing, is opting out of all that and saying that only their gut reaction matters and what the rest of the world knows and thinks is irrelevant. Now that is snobbery.