tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9617011.post114425286059986236..comments2024-03-27T23:45:06.093+01:00Comments on Renewable Music: Still experimentingDaniel Wolfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09093101325234464791noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9617011.post-1146056371444822592006-04-26T14:59:00.000+02:002006-04-26T14:59:00.000+02:00These are serious questions and deserve a thoughtf...These are serious questions and deserve a thoughtful response. I hope that I haven't suggested that all experimental works are "landmarks" or "renewable", or that all landmarks are (or were) experimental. Experimenting is a way or working, while the categories of "landmark" or "renewable" are qualitative. That said, I find that the real musical landmarks are those that keep giving, in that they continue to reveal new ways of listening. I think even Beethoven's 9th may be rich in this quality -- it was, orginally, something of an experiment (a symphony with a secular -- dare one say "secular humanist" -- cantata appended) -- but what precisely it is and how it is used continue to be redefined.<BR/><BR/>For a better answer, please see my item "Ambition", which is just a quote by artist Robert Irwin.Daniel Wolfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09093101325234464791noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9617011.post-1145308546713474012006-04-17T23:15:00.000+02:002006-04-17T23:15:00.000+02:00'It all depends on who experiments and why. Every ...'It all depends on who experiments and why. Every true composer feels the need to experiment. Having exhausted the existing means of expression, he is forever compelled to renew them. Only narcissism - absorption in one's own art - can halt this natural tendency, with fatal consequences. Experiment enriches a composer's equipment. The purpose of the avant-garde, to use the term in the narrow sense of the word, is to prepare the ground for new generations, for classical artists of the future. That is why we must distinguish between an experiment which is useful for any individual composer and an experiment which turns the wheels of history.'<BR/><BR/>I thought of this bit from 'Conversations with Witold Lutoslawski' that I read recently when I encountered your post. What strikes me about his ideas about experimentation versus yours, though, is his statement that 'experiment enriches a composer's equipment'- you seem to feel that the experiment itself is goal enough.<BR/><BR/>I must admit that I am a little puzzled that you love the idea of new music as experiment, but can also get behind Beethoven's 9th and Monteverdi in the previous post. Is loving those experiments of previous generations - that are now considered as scientific 'fact', to wear out the analogy - so different from loving contemporary music which doesn't draw from that accumulated data, so to speak? In other words: if Beethoven's 9th did not exist and were written today by some ultra-reactionary, would it still be worth hearing with today's ears?Trevor Murphyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16221799347828939364noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9617011.post-1145050112022833812006-04-14T23:28:00.000+02:002006-04-14T23:28:00.000+02:00Interesting idea. What is the end result of exper...Interesting idea. What is the end result of experimental music? (For that matter, what is the result of music?)<BR/><BR/>So far, I think that music is an ordered sucession of tones, ordered by some logical system. (Tones include pitch, spectrum, duration,...)<BR/><BR/>What determintes the success or failure of a particular piece of experimental music? Is it its reception by a audience, or by an audience of other experimental musicians?<BR/><BR/>Your last comment is intriguing: (not being comfortable with "effective" music). Could that also be "affective" music? What else is music other than an emotional communication?<BR/><BR/>Or is experimental music a search for that "what else"?<BR/><BR/>And are there some standards (explicit or not) in determining whether a piece is successful? We could apply Ives': if I like it, it's a success.MikeZhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13856948417775902893noreply@blogger.com