Klarinet Archive - Posting 000516.txt from 2001/11

From: Virginia Anderson <assembly1@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] A few facts about Chromatic Modal Harmony
Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2001 18:10:17 -0500

on 13/11/01 9:15 pm, Bill Hausmann <bhausmann1@-----.com> wrote:

>
> The trouble with 12-tone, etc., is that the composers attempt to substitute
> mathematics for inspiration. The result is about as interesting as
> balancing your checkbook!
>
So Bill, you don't like change-ringing, the most mathematical of all musical
generative genres? Most of the rules for that were set down in, oh, the
17th century....

Perhaps the reason there seems to be so much derivative dross in newer music
is that we're hearing pretty much all the music written in the last 50 years
and most of the last hundred. Time has been kind and we are not presented
with most of the really boring stuff from earlier periods (although
musicologists and old music performers can unearth forgotten gems, so the
benefits of time don't work both ways).

There's still a lot of really cool "modern" stuff out there and some of it
may have been generated using set theory, even if it doesn't sound like it.
There's a sweet little Kupferman solo piece (forgotten the title) which I've
used to introduce set theory to students. Many of them wouldn't have
noticed that it was serial if they weren't in a set-theory class.

Cheers,

Virginia
(who agrees with Patricia about Ives and wishes there were more violinists
who liked playing the Largo)
--
Virginia Anderson
Leicester, UK
<vanderson@-----.uk>
Experimental Music Catalogue: <http://www.experimentalmusic.co.uk>
...experimental music since 1969....

---------------------------------------------------------------------