How many times have you heard that phrase? It has almost become as overused as the popular three word phrase among lovers. But what really is music? How do you define it? There really isn't an easy answer to this question unfortunately. Music is a very personal experience. So I guess the cop-out answer is, if you think it's music then it is.
My personal opinion is that somethings that are considered music are actually musical experiments and not music. John Cage did a lot of this. His 4'33" and Imaginary Landscape No. 4, in my opinion are of this "musical experiment" nature more than actual music. Many people will disagree with me, but as I said, this is my opinion. 4'33" is not the production of sound, but a realization of the sound that exists already. Imaginary Landscape No. 4 is a chance piece that relies completely on a detailed set of instructions and twelve radios to create the piece. To me this isn't music. Music is a journey. It is the composers journey and we as listners are along for the ride. What makes music different from other art forms, is that while we are on the composers journey, it is personalized by our experiences.
One of my favorite types of 20th century music is minimalism. Many times you will have a few repeated lines that oscillate and play over and over. What makes it interesting is that as you listen you will pick out different parts of the music as you listen and you don't always pick out the same lines each time or the same lines as other people. The music is always the same, but the way we hear it is very personal and this is what makes music. I have participated in many genres of music so I can personally say that I have performed music that I didn't like, but that I still believed was music.
In my mind there is a clear line between music and not.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Where does it come from?
I'm referring here to inspiration. What inspires you to write music? I think this is different for everyone when it comes to the specifics, but in general, i believe everyone is inspired by the same thing...life. Yes I know it is cheesy, but think on it for a second. In an earlier post Kyle was inspired by sitting in class and listening to the idle chatter. My 'Seven Deadly Sins' piece was inspired by a day at church. But if we think about it, why was Kyle inspired by that particular class? Why did that particular sermon spark my compositional side? Kyle was in classes before where people talked. I had heard many sermons about the deadly sins before that day. So we are back to the question we started with, what inspires you to write music?
When I said it was life that inspires all of us to write music, I guess I should have been more clear, I meant our particular lives at the time of inspiration. Some of you reading this may be thinking, how is that any different? Well let me explain. I once wrote a piece for two trombones titled Hypnotism. It is a short piece that tells the story of a patient who decides to undergo hypnosis, and follows his experience. I wrote this three movement piece in three hours after going to a trombone recital. At that point in my life, I had recently acted in Bat Boy: the musical, I was practicing an unaccompanied trombone solo, I had recently found out about the piece that follows Symphonie Fantastique (Titled Lélio), and I was working with my first marching band. At the recital that night, the soloist played a performance piece where he tapped his feet and moved between lit candles while he played. Now if any of those things hadn't occured, would I have been inspired to write Hypnotism? Obviously going to the recital was the final piece of the puzzle, the catalyst if you will. But I think that had I not been inspired that night, the piece would never have been written. I believe life had created the perfect dominoe set, and that recital was the finger that tipped the first one.
Even if, when writing music, you don't have one of those 'ding' moments where it all seems clear at once, I think that the circumstances of your life determine your music. Don't take that to mean that you can only write 'happy music' when you are happy, and 'sad music' when you are sad etc... What I mean is, very simply, we shape our music out of the mold of ourselves. As composers, we may define one thing as our inspiration for a particular piece, but in retrospect, I think we are merely defining the catalyst. Jack Stamp once told the DePauw Band about how he got the name for a piece we were working on. He said he was out with a friend of his, and they stopped in front of a painting, something that was abstract. His friend turned to him and said, "Doesn't this painting just scream, "Gavorkna!" Thus the title for Stamp's minute forty-five piece was found. But why? And the answer, in my opinion, is that the music was shaped from a part of Jack Stamp, and when he heard Gavorkna, it resonated with his life at that point, for whatever reason, so it just felt right.
Your comments, as always are welcome and encouraged. I want to know what other people think. If you agree with me and can say it better, please do. If you disagree, tell me why and let talk about it.
When I said it was life that inspires all of us to write music, I guess I should have been more clear, I meant our particular lives at the time of inspiration. Some of you reading this may be thinking, how is that any different? Well let me explain. I once wrote a piece for two trombones titled Hypnotism. It is a short piece that tells the story of a patient who decides to undergo hypnosis, and follows his experience. I wrote this three movement piece in three hours after going to a trombone recital. At that point in my life, I had recently acted in Bat Boy: the musical, I was practicing an unaccompanied trombone solo, I had recently found out about the piece that follows Symphonie Fantastique (Titled Lélio), and I was working with my first marching band. At the recital that night, the soloist played a performance piece where he tapped his feet and moved between lit candles while he played. Now if any of those things hadn't occured, would I have been inspired to write Hypnotism? Obviously going to the recital was the final piece of the puzzle, the catalyst if you will. But I think that had I not been inspired that night, the piece would never have been written. I believe life had created the perfect dominoe set, and that recital was the finger that tipped the first one.
Even if, when writing music, you don't have one of those 'ding' moments where it all seems clear at once, I think that the circumstances of your life determine your music. Don't take that to mean that you can only write 'happy music' when you are happy, and 'sad music' when you are sad etc... What I mean is, very simply, we shape our music out of the mold of ourselves. As composers, we may define one thing as our inspiration for a particular piece, but in retrospect, I think we are merely defining the catalyst. Jack Stamp once told the DePauw Band about how he got the name for a piece we were working on. He said he was out with a friend of his, and they stopped in front of a painting, something that was abstract. His friend turned to him and said, "Doesn't this painting just scream, "Gavorkna!" Thus the title for Stamp's minute forty-five piece was found. But why? And the answer, in my opinion, is that the music was shaped from a part of Jack Stamp, and when he heard Gavorkna, it resonated with his life at that point, for whatever reason, so it just felt right.
Your comments, as always are welcome and encouraged. I want to know what other people think. If you agree with me and can say it better, please do. If you disagree, tell me why and let talk about it.
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