Doublereed Archive - Posting 000027.txt from 2003/11

From: Bear Woodson <bearwoodson@-----.net>
Subj: [DR-L] Morons Versus Quality; Counterpoint
Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2003 22:10:39 -0500

> Message: 5
> From: Oboeeee@-----.com
> Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 20:30:03 EST
> Subject: [DR-L] Quote of the Day
> To: doublereed-l@-----.edu
> Reply-To: doublereed-l@-----.edu
>
> "I've outdone anyone you can name -- Mozart,
> Beethoven, Bach, Strauss. Irving Berlin, he
> wrote 1,001 tunes. I wrote 5,500."
> -James Brown (1928)
> America's Godfather of Soul, charter
> member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

It takes a True Moron to think that a thousand
pieces of Moronic Quality Music can compare to
ONE Masterpiece by Bach, Mozart, Beethoven or
Richard Strauß! I know very little about the music
of James Brown, but I'm willing to bet that most
of his music (if not all of it), is STILL written in
Key Signatures (which were abandoned by many
20th Century Composers 100 YEARS AGO, and
also probably use FIVE CHORDS or less, like
Most 20th Century American Popular Music
Pieces do!

I am a Modern Composer, specializing in Coun-
terpoint and Chromatic Modal Harmony. As far as
I'm concerned Most 20th Century American Popular
Music is as inept as presenting a Horse-Drawn
Wagon (a symbol of the Ancient Use of Key Sig-
natures), with only One Wheel left on it, (a symbol
of the 5 Chords or less in the entire piece), to NASA
and expecting them to be DUMB enough to think it
really could fly astronauts safely around the world!

The really embarrassing fact is that most of the
American Public really IS dumb enough to believe
that their favorite Rock, Country / Western, or what-
ever, Popular Style, is actually writing NEW Har-
mony! If ignorance is bliss, I can think of a lot of
people who are in ecstasy, when it comes to how
often they get conned in regards to music!

Telemann wrote 3 times as much music as the
1200 surviving works of the Mega Genius J.S. Bach,
but Telemann's music strikes me a trite, obvious, with
nothing to say musically most of the time. Telemann
would be lucky to have written 100 works of Bach's
quality, while I'd doubt that James Brown (or any
other 20th Century American Popular Music Writer)
wrote even ONE!

Meanwhile, I am still writing my chamber works,
sonatas and concertos that feature every major instru-
ment of the orchestra, and most contain at least one
movement with elaborate Counterpoint in it. In the
last few days I've gotten back to serious work on a
new Double Reed Trio, and just finished the 4th
Movement, which has a Triple Fugue (my 3rd) in
it. It even uses the Triple Fugue in Inversion, Retro-
grade-Inversion, for the First Time in all (non-12-
Tone History)! I also use the Triple Fugue in Retro-
grade, but I did that in the Triple Fugue 4th Move-
ment of my recent "Sonata No. 1 for (Bb) Clarinet
and Piano" (June 2003, 4 mvts., 26 min.), which
was premiered in Slovenia on October 7, 2003.

"Trio for Oboe, English Horn and Bassoon"
(Nov. 2003 [in progress], 5 mvts. ?? min.)

I Introduction & Vivace 4' 25"
II Conversation: Adagio 3' 50"
III Scherzo - Arabesque - Scherzo 4' 35"
IV Triple Fugue: Largo 3' 45"
V Moto Perpetuo: Allegro ?' ??"
total time so far: 16' 35"

I still need to finish the 5th Movement that I
started writing only today, but I think it will go
quickly. It should be a fun Trio, albeit that the
subtleties of the Counterpoint in the 4th Movement
will be lost on most of the public.

I am very aware that James Brown has a
following of millions of people, most of whom have
never heard the words "Music Theory" and much
less "20th Century Music Theory", so via their
music theory illiteracy, they are impressed by his
19th Century Harmonies, as if they were New. I
also know that my high-IQ music will never win-
over the millions of music theory illiterates, but at
least it will be studied and performed in colleges
200 years from now, while James Brown, like all
Popular Music, loses followers with each generation
that were teenagers after the prime of his career.

(This is true of all Popular Music since it first
began to be written down since the Renaissance.
Popular Music Songs are generally written by and
for the music theory illiterates, with texts about love,
and will never be played by the public, if they use
more than a few chords and anything more elaborate
than the SAME few chord progressions that the
public has been listening to for the last 600 YEARS!
Sorry if these facts offend anyone, but these are
facts, and cannot be argued, without proving total
ignorance of Music Theory.)

I gotta get back to this Double Reed Trio, before
the Quackatorium feels neglected and comes out to
GET me! (We Arizona Paranoids are always con-
cerned with who is out to GET us! It's required in
our membership rules!)

Bear Woodson
Composer in Tucson, Arizona, USA

"Bear Woodson" <bearwoodson@-----.net>
http://www.fluteconnection.net/
Then click on "Contemporary Composers",
then click on "Bear Woodson".
http://catalog.lib.asu.edu/search/a?SEARCH=McGale