Klarinet Archive - Posting 000024.txt from 2009/04

From: Fred Jacobowitz <fbjacobo@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Emerson, Lake & Palmer
Date: Fri, 03 Apr 2009 22:12:02 -0400

Bear,
There are many reasons for most people still hewing to the
"Traditional Harmony", but eventually in boils down to: Modern
harmony is UGLY. What I believe people mean by that is the atonal,
aleatoric, gestural, sometimes formless, rhythmically obscure,
sometimes computer-generated stuff that, frankly, almost killed
classical music.
And frankly, I mostly agree with them. Granted, music can be
challenging and intellectually stimulating, but I believe that
composers miss the point when when they create works that only
someone in the rarified world of conservatory-trained musicians can
understand. I believe that you, Bear, are one of the blessed
(relatively) few who both love and understand highly complex, atonal
music. However, if one needs a conservatory education to be able to
appreciate much of 20th C. music, is it any wonder that the vast
majority of listeners are turned away from it?
I, with my 2 degrees (and then some) from big name conservatories,
can appreciate, if not necessarily enjoy, the works of Berg, Cage,
Xenakis, Ligeti, Takemitzu, et al. However, I am not surprised that
the general public is mystified and alienated by it, any more than I
am that the reading public shies away from Thomas Mann, James Joyce,
etc.
I think all the producers of academic art forget that people listen
to music/read poetry/view paintings, etc. to relax and gently allow
their unconscious to explore other-than-humdrum matters. Artists
forget that art is **EMOTIONAL**. Audiences don't want to be
intellectually challenged - but are willing to be intellectually and
emotionally stimulated. This is a rather small, but important point.
It is the difference between music that tries to be accessible,
however erudite it is (it may mean that the listener must meet it
half way, but at least it tries), and music that doesn't give a you-
know-what if anyone gets it (or cares to). Unfortunately, the second
is what has held sway for most of the 20th C, and still often does. I
am not embarrassed to say that I like music that has a memorable,
singable melody. Call me old-fashioned, if you want.
Finally, we must remember that in Mozart's time, most of the hoi
polloi (sp?) didn't have access to string quartets. They saw
singspiels, hurdy-gurdy players, etc. Not so different from the
masses who know only rock-n-roll or R&B today. We tend to forget that
art music has always been created by and for a rather select group.

Fred Jacobowitz

CASE CLOSED Musical Instrument Case Repair Service
Kol Haruach Klezmer Band
Ebony and Ivory Duo

You don't get harmony when everybody sings the same note.
~Doug Floyd

On Apr 3, 2009, at 9:14 PM, Bear Woodson wrote:

> I grew up in a household where there was NO Classical
> Music at all, yet somehow I was drawn to it. I was (and
> still am), a True Nerd, who is best at studying alone, having
> NO People Skills whatsoever. So I had planned to go into a
> biological science, perhaps doing Viral Research to find cures
> for diseases. By age 11, in 1965, I stopped listening to Rock
> n' Roll, because it just didn't fulfill me. By 14 in 1968, I
> started listening to Beethoven and Mozart symphonies, and
> by age 16, I started to "hear" symphonic music in my
> imagination, that was not on any of the records. In 1971, at
> age 17, started college as a Composer and eager student of
> 18th and 20th Century Music Theory.
>
> (I now hold a Master's as a Composer and Music Theorist,
> with Specialties in Counterpoint and the 20th Century
> Harmonic Language called "Chromatic Functional Modality".)
>
> During the 1970's all of my Music-Theory-Illiterate college-
> aged-friends would try to impress me, by bringing their Rock
> n' Roll records to my apartment, convinced that they had found
> examples of 20th-Century-Invented Harmony in their '5-chord-
> wonder' moron music. The conversations often went like this:
>
> "Is this Modern Harmony?"
>
> "No, that's still I, IV, V harmony, which began to evolve in
> the 1400's, became Common Knowledge by 1700, and was
> ABANDONED by many Modern Classical Composers in
> the Early 20th Century".
>
> "So, is THIS Modern Harmony?"
>
> "No, that's still I, IV, V."
>
> After dozens of more records they'd say, "WHY do you
> keep saying those same Numbers over and over again,
> with every Rock Song I play for you?"
>
> "How is it MY fault that YOU CHOOSE to only listen to
> music that ONLY uses the Most Basic Chords in Tonality
> from Hundreds of Years Ago; and yet you run away from
> everything that actually uses More Harmonic Variety?"
>
> Finally one day, one friend brought over the "Emerson, Lake
> & Palmer" "Brain Salad Surgery" album, which had their
> Transcription of the Alberto Ginastera Piano Concerto's
> "Toccata" Movement, which was done with the Personal
> Blessing of Alberto Ginastera himself! I was STUNNED and
> Impressed! To this date, that is the ONLY example of Modern
> Harmony that I know of, in any Big-Selling, Popular Music
> Album!
>
> I've been told that Frank Zappa wrote Modern Harmony in
> many of his "popular-styled" music, but I don't remember ever
> hearing any of his music. Even so, the sad point is:
>
> Most of the "modern" public is still listening to Pre-1900's
> Harmony, and getting angry and threatened, when you tell them
> the True Age of those Lovely, but 150-to-600-YEAR-OLD
> Harmonies!
>
> The term "Harmonic Language" can be used in the 'Small
> Picture' level, to describe the harmonies used by one composer,
> or even in just one piece of music. But in the 'Big Picture' many
> Music Theorist believe that a "Harmonic Language" lasts about
> 250 to 300 years, and then changes dramatically.
>
> The Former "Harmonic Language" lasted from about 1600 to
> 1900 and was called:
>
> 18th Century Harmony,
> Bach Harmony,
> Traditional Harmony,
> Tonal Harmony,
> Tonality, or
> Key Signature Harmony.
>
> In 1859 Richard Wagner released his "Tristan und Isolde"
> opera, which stretched Tonality to the limits, so that if you take
> one tiny step further, you'd be playing in "2 Different Key
> Signatures" at the Same Time, which is also called "Bi-Tonality".
> By the 1890's and Early 20th Century, we find many examples
> of "Poly-Tonal" and "Poly-Modal" Harmony.
>
> "Tristan und Isolde" also contained the Chords (but NOT the
> Style!) of Blues and some forms of Jazz. Those Kinds of Jazz
> and Blues Chord Progressions would become Common in
> American Popular Music by the 1920's, and finally display the
> true respective Blues and Jazz Styles.
>
> "Tristan und Isolde" also started the trend of Changing Key
> Signature Drastically via Chromatics, every few bars apart in
> some passages. But to have SO many Chromatics constantly
> Correcting and Changing the Official Key Signature, became
> more Confusing than helpful. THIS is why many 20th Century
> Composers would use NO Key Signature, and just use "Free
> Chromatics", to show the Rapidly Changing Modes and 'Key
> Signatures'. I was trained that way 35 years ago, and am very
> heartbroken every time I find another "professional musician"
> who is NOT aware of this 150-Year-Old, Common Knowledge
> Fact! (I have NEVER used a Key Signature in any Official
> Work of mine, unless you count some of the Cadenzas I've
> written for a few of the Mozart Concerti, since I know many
> of them very well, for various Solo Instruments.)
>
> (I've also been shocked and disappointed by too many
> members of the Klarinet List, who may make a good living
> playing Broadway Musicals, which have a Level of Tonality at
> 1830 or Earlier, while thinking that such harmonies are
> NEWLY INVENTED, because they are too Unschooled in
> Recent Music Theory! *sob!* And yet too few people on the
> Klarinet List listen to, perform, or talk about, the many Clarinet
> Works written in Modern Harmony in the last 50 years!)
>
> At least Emerson, Lake & Palmer gave it a shot 36 years ago!
> . . . But I don't think I'd eat a salad with them.
>
>
> Bear Woodson
>
> Home: 520 - 881 - 2558
> "Bear Woodson" <bearwoodson@-----.net>
>
> "If our Technology was as advanced as our Popular
> Music Harmony, we'd be riding in horse-drawn
> carriages by candle light, and dying of the Common
> Cold!" - Bear Woodson (1998)
>
>
>
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