Long-Short Eighth Note Rhythm

No, this one is not noise, but I still don't like it

It may well be that I don't "understand" some of the music of "our time", but I reserve the right to dislike this kind of music, as I reserve the right to keep my walls Picasso-free. At the same time I respect other peoples tastes in music as well as other arts. Disagreements in taste makes for a nice diversified range of arts, and that's great.

But, as much as I dislike certain forms of music, I still can appreciate the fact that it exists, and that people are willing to "think outside the box" and part ways with traditional forms. This is how everything evolves, and why we have the multitude of genres we have today. Doesn't mean that music from previous times are "outdated", we still listen to and appreciate music from the middle ages, or at least music derived therefrom.

And, even though my taste in music might be somewhat archaic, I will still give "your kind" of music a listen, as it broadens my perspective on music in general, and also teaches me things. Like this little discussion, and some of your explanations, has taught me things I didn't know before.

Finally, I find that music most certainly can be descriptive. I think that most people would agree, that different pieces of music is instantly recognized as being "happy" or "sad" or whatever. That's a musical description of an emotion. And what would a movie be without the background music to set the mood of the scene?

Oh, and I might add another example: Vesti la giubba (Leoncavallo).
I never understood a word of what he's singing, and I don't need to.
I am moved to tears and immediately understand his pain, and I think the rest of the world with me.



You could also say that a dance step, as well as a music note, describes nothing in itself. Yet, a ballet, with only music and dance, conveys a complex story, that most people have no difficulty understanding.

PS. It's becoming clear to me why fencing is your hobby. And I'm sure you're very good at it. It's the epiphany of gentlemanly fighting, and done correctly is very enjoyable to watch. As I'm enjoying this little battle of musical generations.

Can you instantly recognize a piece as sad or happy? Is the Waldstein Sonata by Beethoven sad? or happy?
What about Op.31 No.1? Or Op.31 No.3? Sad? Happy? Our understanding of tonal music doesn't match the one people had in Beethoven's time. Listening to the Op.31 sonatas, you'd probably think they are happy. But they were written at a time when Beethoven was playing with the thought of committing suicide. Under a neat, "major" tonal structure, a smart analyst might find elements that could depict gloom. However, the overall impression you'd get of the piece would be more light hearted, because we are still more used to dissonnances than Beethoven was.
Also, in Schubert's music for examples, sections that are written in major scales tend to be sadder than the ones in minor. Why? I don't know. But certainly that's in contradiction with the argument that music can have a vocabulary which possesses an objective semantic interpretation, as major chords are generally seen as more "bright" and "happy" when played out of context.
Another question: would you cry if you listened to the Domingo recording here without seeing him? I am not sure of that (and you can't check it anymore as you would imagine him).

About the PS: it is all about not letting things get personal We are discussing music here, not judging people or making them look bad. Of course I enjoy it too

Oh, I didn't mean to get personal at all. It was meant as a compliment to your wits, and you ability to "fence with words", in other words to spot the weak points in your opponents defences (argument), and set in against it.

Yes, yes, that's what I understood, I was just commenting on this fact

yikes, I just typed an answer, and it disappeared on me, will have to type it again, grrrrr

so, here it is:

At to "Vesti"; Yes it would. I have never seen this opera, nor had I ever seen Domingo or anyone else perform this piece, until the "3 tenor concerts" in recent years. But I had heard the music plenty of times (have a CD), and I instantly understood the pain (as well as enjoyed the beauty of the piece).

As to the other pieces, I do not have the musical knowledge you do, so I'd have to look them up and listen to them to give an answer.

But, the fact that Beethoven might have felt something different when he wrote the piece, from what I feel when I listen to it, does not change the fact that it conveys emotion. Neither does the fact that you, or someone else, might feel it differently again. Our previous life experiences "color" our perceptions, thus we will all have a different reaction to the same experience.

Of course music conveys emotions, but it fails at depicting something, as everyone would have his own interpretation!
Also, I mean not only that Beethoven might have felt something different, but that his conception of the power of dissonnance was totally different from ours. We cannot pretend to understand this music the way it was intened, because it is not the music of our time. The question now is: how to render it without making it kitschy? Well at least that's if your musical moral is developped. If it's not, you might just take the easy solution of André Rieu and such: do not care at all and make pop garbage out of it. But for serious musicians, it is a problem: you have to actually integer the knowledge you have of everything that happened AFTER Beethoven, and actualise your interpretation according to the musical concepts you have learned... It's quite a complicated process, but when done properly, it leads to a generation of excellent musicians, with extreme rigorship in their approach of music.

Wow, that's a mouthful.

But music isn't just for the "chosen few". And there are and will be precious few with the musical background/education you mention. For the rest of us, just because we can't "understand it the way Beethoven intended it", does not mean it has been turned into "pop garbage". And I do believe that even Beethoven meant for his music to be enjoyed by "the masses" as well, otherwise there would have been no reason to publish it at all. He could have just shared it with a few individuals on his own level.

And since you're striking a blow against "Andre Rieu and such", I'll jump to their defense.
I'll have you know that I actually enjoy very much (which should be of no surprise to you) to listen to Andre Rieu's concerts. His is the virtue of playing popular well know music to "the masses", and at the same time mixing in the "less often heard" music from the classical masters, be it symphonies or operas, and he is doing it very well in my opinion. There's no reason listening to music can't be a festive and fun experience, and I certainly do not feel that he is prostituting the "serious music" in any way. What he does accomplish, is to widen the audience for this kind of music, and that in my opinion is a good thing. And I don't mind admitting that I enjoy having "Circus Renz" served with a bit of smoke and hoopla, it's just plain fun.

Rieu has the power to reach a broad audience because of his good sense of marketing. Fine. But what he does is not ethical: instead of serving them crafted performances, he serves them poor arrangements of works that are already popular anyway. He never plays original versions either... He will never try to broaden the spectrum of the sensivity of his audience.
Actually, it is a suprise for me that you can enjoy what he does...
Great performers also would seek to reach a wide audience. There is no contradiction between what I said and this fact! I would love to play for huge crowded halls and to actually have the possibility to share some of the amazing power of music with as many people as possible. For me, an average audience doesn't see the difference between a poor and a good performance (seriously, they don't), but DOES suddenly feel something different when something outstanding happens on stage.
André Rieu serves a show, but should not be seriously considered as a musician (or at least not the same category as, say, Richter: The experience of one of his concerts will certainly not affect your feelings in any way for more than one minute, while having seen Richter play Schubert live, even for a non musician, must have been something that one would never forget).
What I meant with pop garbage is not what you think: if you listen to a performance of a Beethoven Symphony, you will enjoy it, if you listen to an amazing performance of it, you will enjoy it more, and that's fine. But this performance will be played in a musically proper way. Nobody will add drums to it, or play the flute part with a violin. That's what André Rieu does... It is show, it is artistically and ethically questionable (to serve people what they are used to have without trying to "raise their souls", so to speak)

Just to be clear, I just don't want to compare this:



with this:

Matthieu Stepec wrote:It sounds like early XXth century russian classical music, such as Prokofiev or sometimes Stravinsky. It's a kind of music that is quite engaging to listen to, that features dissonance but without ever trying to break the rules of tonality.

More incredible awesomeness:

Ah I see, so it really is 20th century classical type of music. Btw I really enjoy the song above.

"what you all think of this excellent rendition of "oiseaux exotiques" by Messiaen"

It's not the dissonance that makes me not enjoy it, it's kinda the whole, how it's played. And I never think i'll be able to enjoy it. Kinda the music you'll see in tv shows made for kids ages ago. The kind that didnt really make you feel well as a kid when watching it.

I tend to like this sort, it's quite chill, tempo is kinda "fast", but it'll still make you relax:

Richter playing Schubert was beautiful. I don't recall having heard this one before, and I really enjoyed it. Thanks.

No, of course I wouldn't compare that to Rieu's Brazil, that's just a bit of fun. Now, you would go and pick something like that to drive your point, and yes, Rieu is a master in "putting on a show" (nothing wrong with that). But that is not all he does:



That is lovely to listen to for me. And I have no problem enjoying both this and Richter's Shubert in equal measure. As I will listen to Mozart and Saint-Saens, and then to Beatles and Aznavour, even throw in a few yodeling tunes from Tirol, and thoroughly enjoy all of it. I'll even listen to some old danish pop songs, that are really pretty bad, just because they remind me of home.

I'm just not as "qualified" to be as "critical" as you are (don't mean that in a bad way). In trying to understand where you are coming from, I come to think of my own "relationship" with the sports of horses (bare with me here). I have spent 50 years with horses, and I know a good deal more about them and the various sports with them, than the average person out there. So, when we are watching dressage on TV, my husband (who knows nothing about horses, but like them) will just enjoy the pretty horses doing their thing, while I will be picking out all the miscellaneous errors, be appalled at the type of horses they ride in dressage nowadays (breeders really don't have a clue anymore), and generally fume around the mouth because they shouldn't be riding with those huge (two) bits in the first place, as it is totally unnecessary (and actually harmful) to use any bit at all to ride or train a horse. Ok now, unless you're a "horse-person", you probably don't have a clue what I'm talking about here, but my point is, that my "expertise" to some extent have "ruined" my ability to enjoy a less-than-perfect performance, and where others may see a "great show", I see a lot of ignorance, and some times horrendous misuse of an innocent animal.

So, maybe I'm just as well off here in my "blessed level of ignorance"

Hmm. I haven't played any PC games, since they came out with those quest games in the late 80's (yea, in the childhood of the PC), and I didn't realize they had so much (different kinds) music in them nowadays.

jytte wrote:Hmm. I haven't played any PC games, since they came out with those quest games in the late 80's (yea, in the childhood of the PC), and I didn't realize they had so much (different kinds) music in them nowadays.

It's console games though but PC games also have alot of different music in them. Yeah, some have more darker things in them (like Demon's Souls) while others have something else. Let me show you some examples (although I think alot of the video game music I listen to is classical, might be wrong):

A more rocky one:




A more army/march type of song:





Classical music:




(another one from Eternal Sonata because the soundtrack is so amazing)



Traditional music?



Ambient (or at least I heard some say it's ambient):


(yes Folklore's soundtrack is also amazing.

I could go on forever showing some great video game music but I think it's enough.

I can understand that you like to listen to that, some is pretty, some engaging in other ways. Classical, though, not really.

The Eternal Sonata (and a bunch of other games) were all written by
Motoi Sakubara (in the 1990s).

The Folklore Irish Lullaby is in fact "Irish Lullaby" written in 1914 by James Royce Shannon (who is actually British), and made popular by american movies (go figure).

I also noticed that RGPmusic makes all their game soundtracks available free of charge on their website, that's nice of them.

You know what I mean?

Better without a conductor pretending to conduct the solo singer (impossible to do), and without this extreme rubato on the high note... Actually, it's just better when it's done by musicians!
About pop music, video games music, film music: yes, it can be nice, but it's not to be listened to with the same concentration as classical music. What you all seem to be looking for is something you can listen to with only one ear without getting disturbed by it. Video games music is meant to be heard while you play... That's why the jazz they play there is "smoother". It's easy listening music. But as a musician, you DO have the duty to get deeper than that

Maria Callas has a beautiful voice - always a pleasure

About Mio Babbino:

I was just looking at this sheet (a so-called easy version)



it's for flute/piano, never mind that

but have a look at the left hand here. I mean, it's beautiful to listen to (midi), but how many years do you have to practice to be able to play that??? I've tried it, not so good

What I mean is, the chord themselves are easy enough, but shifting between them with any kind of fluency, oh lord!

Actually, this left hand is quite easy, as long as you know a bit about harmony.
The typical mistakes to avoid are:
-panic because there are 16th notes
-try to jump from one chord position to the next
Play it very slowly first, and try to bind the last note of an arpeggiated chord to the next. For example in the first measure: a good fingering for the second chord would be (for example) 3 1 2 1 2 1, so that the octave to the next G gets really easy to play. Etc, etc. If it's still too hard, play all three notes of the chord in eighth notes, and voilà! (B D G, D G B, etc.)

Also, if you look at the score, you can see very well that the high "G" is an eighth note, while in André Rieu's recording, it's at least a half note...

Oh, it takes more than a bitsy 16th note to put me in panic mode

But playing the arpeggios as I play chords was where I fell in the water. Of course if I forget that these are variations of a chord, and just play them as I would a melody, it makes perfect sense and is quite easy as you say. DUH.

I did try it with 8th notes, does not sound good. It's basically a choice between a real easy version of semi-solid chords or figuring out how to play this, which I now have.

I'm so glad I asked, Thanks.

Let me just add my two cents to the Jazz discussion. I myself don't really like the "breathy" ride cymbal in Jazz. It gives me the feeling of sleepiness and getting hot, not a good combination. But piano solos in Jazz are incredible! Jazz seems to incorporate a lot of chromatic scales. You just sit back, buckle up and let the pianist take you for a ride! I only listened to the first two videos from Matthieu. They were incredible!