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My Symphony Three

58K views 329 replies 57 participants last post by  derrjason32 
#1 ·
Hi all,

Here is the complete Symphony Three (in Four Movements) I made. I like the second and third movements the best.



Billy McBride
 
#157 · (Edited)
I never said I was immortal, like say Socrates does of the soul. I have made friends with the necessity of my own death, and am a realist. Grandiosity does not appeal to me. Plato did say that music was the highest art. And, the critic Walter Pater said that all art strives to the condition of music. In Shakespeare, I have learned that one thing that makes the characters great is that they don't really listen to each other but they do overhear themselves, and change as a result of this overhearing. The other critic Harold Bloom is my guide in this matter. If this can be applied to music, then none of us would really idealize making music into some sort of divine entity, none of us would think of music as nothing but human play and replay. To give to music divine qualities, and not to think of it as merely a human construct constructed by humans to accomplish certain social goals, seems to me to be a bad idea. Plato also said of our judgments that they are basically imperfect opinions. That we must reach a higher knowledge by contemplating the Forms, and that was the only way towards truth. Even Socrates was an ironist when it came to wisdom. I do not care for contemplation, but action. That is the reason why I seek hope in place of knowledge. Love with money is not bad either to find and/or share. Usually love and wisdom are opposites though. I am not a Kantian moral philosopher, I do not think that just because I do something, like make music one way, means that everybody must do it that way as if my rules are the correct ones to live by. I would rather keep saying to myself "Why not?" or "Let's try it this way and see what happens." I do ask of others to entertain me instead of me them.
 
#159 ·
Billy, why are you quoting Ancient Greek philosophers in an attempt to justify your random music? Stop trying to be all deep and profound, and possibly explain how you can produce 30 odd 'symphonies' in a few days and rationally expect the criticism to be all glowing and positive. Please.

Also, can you remember all your works in your head?
 
#162 · (Edited)
I've just listened again to the second movement of twenty-three (between 07:00 and 14:20) a couple of times. It starts with a theme that could come from the Scherzo of a Bruckner symphony. But of course it immediately disappears in this typical Billy cacophony. Later, the piece miraculously takes shape again and some other motifs appear. Some of them only short, just as if they wanted to be saved from drowning. I could write a review of a whole page, but in English, this is not easy for me.

Anyway, absolutely awesome, that piece. I would call it genious, but that's probably the wrong word since I know that these things more or less happen accidentally. But finally the music is there, and that's all that matters. If Billy produces 300 hours of music and if he then has 1 hour of music at that level then his whole effort has paid off.

Honestly folks, if I would hear anything from anyone of you that comes even close to that, I would take this discussion a little more seriously.

Btw: Good luck at your competition thing. Bye.
 
#164 ·
Thank you Juergen for your kind words about Symphony No.23 and others. I hope that I can make more music that you find interesting. Thanks for listening.

Renaissance, I have made a few piano pieces some of which I call Odes. They also are on my YouTube site.

Ramako, what you said about the Golden Rectangle interests me.

PetrB, I don't know if literature in that way is really compatible with music.

Lunasong, I think that you're gonna miss out on something coming up!

Gnostic Classical Symphony No.9:

 
#167 ·
Oh, boy.

I composed my first piece of "music" in about a month. I was really proud of myself for finishing it, yet I realized the whole time that it did not sound like I wanted it to. I committed myself to learning music theory so that I could understand why it didn't sound very musical and could improve myself thereby. And I'm still learning, not to understand why I didn't like my first piece, which I know very well, now, but to understand what mistakes I should make and what mistakes I should avoid.

Here is a quote commonly (and erroneously, though that matters not, for there is truth in it regardless) attributed to Brahms:
Inspiration is of such importance in composing, but by no means all that there is to it. Structure is just as consequential, for without craftsmanship, inspiration is a 'mere reed shaken in the wind' or 'sounding brass or tinkling cymbals'. Great compositions are not the fruits of inspiration alone, but of severe, laborious and painstaking toil. No composition will live long unless it has both inspiration and craftsmanship, which Beethoven had to a superlative degree. There also must be in relation, with inspiration and craftsmanship, a natural aptitude, where ideas come to you with more or less no conscious effort, with a sense of comfort and relative ease, like a aspiration being fulfilled. But parallel to that, as seen in Beethoven's sketchbooks, comes the proof that he toiled incessantly in order to leave us such masterpieces. Only with your religiosity, God's inspiration, and the utilization of all three, can one achieve mastery of classical music composition and achieve true fame and immortality, which is what oblivion constantly tries to challenge. This is the proven universal formula for success in music and any and all other endeavors of human life.
That is all.
 
#168 ·
I think that it is the past great who elect the next into fame and not a person's hard work or ease.
 
#170 · (Edited)
With my latest work I have attempted to capture the manic yet peaceful essence of Billy's style; a whirlwind of sound that belies a calm centre, like a mighty storm. I have tried to keep this full of positivity, but there is also a bleakness, a seedy undercurrent, as I have included symbolic references to Faulkner.

I felt it was best to post it here, in this shrine to TC's favourite composer.

Rapsodie symphonique sur le nom de Billy
 
#173 ·
Classical Symphony No.45 (there were 10 Classical Gnostic Symphonies, and 34 Regular ones before them):

 
#175 ·
Billy, you would have achieved the same result if you had kept one finger on the same key for a 27 minute long tied note. And that is what you have effectively done 45 times. Being prolific with the same symmetrical idea won't achieve you anything, I would just be happy to produce ONE 20 minute symphony in a lifetime. Billy, your music is boring.
 
#178 · (Edited)
There was a composer called Billy,
Who everyone else thought was silly
because he kept writing
while they kept on fighting
to stop him composing more symphonies.

At first they try to instruct him,
The effects it has are but slim,
So they say he's a phony
his music's cacophony
But still he just seems to ignore them.

A symph'y a day keeps the doctor away:
They cannot sway Billy with ought that they say,
It's awful says Steven
It's heaven says juergen
And Beetzart says "talk to us Billy".

But then it turns out he seeks hope,
not truth, so they deem he's on dope,
off-topic a smidgeon,
they argue religion,
philosophy and the theories of Plato.

But what is so great about Billy Mcbride
is not whether he's genius or full of false pride,
but that he kept writing
while the rest kept on fighting
and that he took all the flak in his stride.

Dedicated to a remarkable thread :tiphat:
 
#180 ·
Thanks Ramako for sharing the fun poem! I like to think that usually when people like to argue with me that they are really just probably hungry for a good meal. People should eat more good food if they can instead of arguing since I doubt that anybody can really learn anything from anybody else. They can only be more inspired by them. I am not out to change anybody though.
 
#183 ·
Billy "composes" dozens of "symphonies" so he can say "look at me, I composed a bunch of symphonies". Clearly quality is the last thing on his mind, otherwise he would have appreciated of all the feedback we've given him, and would take his work seriously enough to spend more than a few hours on each symphony. Can you imagine Beethoven composing a symphony in a few hours? He worked on his 5th for several years. Brahms worked on his 1st for almost 20 years. Billy has an extremely shallow and narrow view of classical music, and he is very unrealistic about how he judges his own "work".

I'm sorry, I don't mean to be mean, but it really bugs me when people don't even have an iota of curiosity to find out what classical music is all about, and they act like the know all there is to know. It bugs me when I hear people say stuff like, "I like classical music, I just can't name all of the composers", or when they say their favorite classical composer is Gershwin (don't get me wrong, I like Gershwin), or worse yet, "I composed 50 symphonies", and they all sound like they were composed by a toddler fiddling on a Fisher-Price keyboard. It's not like the meaning of music is hidden. Just go to Amazon or iTunes and download some Beethoven symphonies, and enjoy listening to them! Easy to do, if you're CURIOUS!
 
#186 ·
I think that he is composing a relentless Octet fuge. So it might take a while.
 
#191 ·
Has Billy stopped composing?
 
#194 ·
I hear lots of great ideas in these works I just crave for some of them to developed, refined a little. Its like each piece is total overkill, and there are the seeds therein for a thousand more pieces. Maybe Billy is ahead of his time, but the pieces presented in this way give me little musical satisfaction and make me crave a sense of direction, some restraint, and some forethought.

It is too much at once, and far too random and meandering to produce much musical enjoyment for me, though I do hear a lot of potential personally.
 
#198 · (Edited)
Whatever you might say about the theoretical content of Billy's music, you have to admit that he's not just making 'random' improvisations. Billy most certainly has a particular idea about the sounds he likes to make. I can't bear to sit through a whole 'symphony' and yet they have a certain quality to them that shows a certain personality. Billy is certainly a unique individual, and odd though he may be, he has that peculiar capacity to exist in his own rich inner world and it shines through in whatever work he produces, incoherent and strange though it may be.

I find his artistic persona both absurdly funny in a somewhat derogatory sense, as well as really quite endearing at the same time, because he appears to be utterly sincere and particular.
 
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