I think this issue depends on what is meant by understanding. I would not say I really understand any piece of music. I recognize some aspects of music but nothing significant and nothing that really changes my feeling about the work. So I would say I like Mozart and do not understand his work, and I generally don't like Xenakis and also do not understand his work.

if one listens to particular music enough for them to have a sense whether they like it or not, they can report on their feelings. For some, listening enough may involve a few minutes; whereas, for others, it may involve many repeated listenings. I'm not sure I would require someone understanding a work or set of works for that person to say whether they like the work or composer.

 

Hi Klassic. Are you currently listening to Boulez and trying to make sense of his music, but finding difficulty?

I think that it's always okay to dislike any music. There are people with music PhDs who would give high ratings to Boulez, and people with music PhDs who would give low ratings to Boulez.

But if you want help with Boulez, here's my advice. I would just try to listen to it using the same listening skills one would apply to Bach, Mahler, and Stravinsky... but just remembering that harmony, melodic figures, sonority, rhythm, and contrapuntal texture are different for Boulez. That's really it.

In something like Sur Incises

try to just focus on the motivic and harmonic patterns made by the piano at the forefront, and the echos of the harp and percussion in the background. Sometimes these instruments will sound separate and do separate things, and sometimes they will interact densely in a flurry. There will be a lot of glowing sustained chords, and activity on top of these chords as the sonorities blend.

Then, at the 4 minute mark in the performance I linked, the music suddenly picks up a distinct fast pulse and the density of activity vastly increases. Try to focus on the different patterns in the different instruments, while at the same time listening to the overall sound.

Just as how in the highly contrapuntal music of Bach one tries to listen for both the individual lines as well as the overall sound, so does one do the same with Boulez. And when one does that, one is carried away by its waves of energy, and its extreme contrasts between stasis of sound and flurry of activity. Unless one wants to learn about music compositional technique or music history at a deep level, there's no need for any intellectual understanding. Only gut understanding is needed, and this is possible using the same listening skills one uses for earlier composers.

 

My attitude is that, given that listening to any specific piece of music is a voluntary activity (exceptions noted), and given that we only have a finite amount of listening available to us, nobody is under any obligation to spend a requisite amount of time listening to anything, let alone trying to understand it. Deciding that one doesn't like it before one understands it may be a way of saving a lot of time. Or it might mean missing out on something that ultimately would have proved very rewarding. That's a decision up to each individual every time. Some may want to at least try to understand everything they listen to, or everything that other people say is great, or whatever; some may just like to stick with what they're comfortable with; it's their choice.

Dismissing a piece of music as bad without trying to understand what's going on is foolhardy, but that doesn't appear to be what we're talking about here.

 

Understanding does not always equal appreciation, but disregard without understanding seems a bit premature.

Happens all the time - and not just wrt classical music. But it is also possible to appreciate without understanding (my wife and I might both be guilty of that).

 

Option A: I don't like the music of composer X. Let's spend a lot of time trying to understand it so maybe I will like it one day.
Option B: I don't like the music of composer X. Let's switch to composer Y and see whether I like that, or switch to one of many, many composers that I know that I like.

Option B for me every time.

 

Option B: I don't like the music of composer X. Let's switch to composer Y and see whether I like that, or switch to one of many, many composers that I know that I like.

Option B for me every time.

Gets my vote too.

 

But what happens where someone listens too Art of Fugue, say, or the Machaut Mass, or the Schoenberg string teio, and doesn't like them? Knowing that people who have devoted much time and thought to Bach and Machaut and Schoenberg rate them as masterpieces. I think it's a bit glib to just say to yourself "oh well, not for me, let's move on", just as you might do with, for example, a ride in a theme park.

(think of someone taking the same approach to Shakespeare or Aristotle)

Another approach would be to rise to the challenge: listen harder, to different interpretations, read books, talk to people who do appreciate it. . . .



Music can make people feel uncomfortable and disorientated because they haven't learned how to listen. That takes perseverance sometimes.

 

Music can make people feel uncomfortable and disorientated because they haven't learned how to listen. That takes perseverance sometimes.

FWIW, there's a lot of music I don't like, but I would never characterize my feelings toward it as "uncomfortable and disorientated".

But what happens where someone listens too Art of Fugue, say, or the Machaut Mass, or the Schoenberg string teio, and doesn't like them?

Well, yeah, what happens?
What happens when someone listens to them and does like them?
Does a fairy get its wings or something?
I'm being sarcastic, but seriously, why should these individuals' personal thoughts matter to us?

 

the question we discuss in this thread strongly reminded me of a question "Agnostic vs Gnostic " approach.

 

If you don't like the music of a leading composer, then you don't understand it in the sense that you don't get it. The shortcoming that many have on here is to criticise the quality of the music rather than their own lack of ability to understand and appreciate it.

 

I was with you on this until the last few words. I don't see an inability to understand and appreciate a particular composer's work as some kind of mistake - however great the composer, differences in personal taste don't seem to me to be matters for criticism. One example: Vaughan Williams could see the quality of Beethoven's music but couldn't stand listening to it. That may mystify me, but I couldn't regard it as somehow objectively "wrong".

 

I think one shouldn't understand music theory, counterpart and other technical issues before he judges a work. Why a normal guy like myself fell instantly in love with Tchaikovsky's violin concerto or Brahms violin sonata no.3? I understand nothing about music but I ,and millions like me, can instantly judge these works as masterpieces. They can be easily detected as beautiful and sublime works.

The same people including me, if they are exposed to a avant garde masterpiece, like one of xenakis or john cage works, statistically, what would you expect? Let the ignorant peasants like me aside. If we resurrected the great Beethoven or the legendary Mozart today and made them listen to such works. What can we expect? I can at least expect rage and cursing from Beethoven.

 

But I don't find the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto particularly sublime at all. I find it to be one of the composer's worse pieces overall and an example of some of his bad habits indulged far too much. Beautiful? It has its moments, but I don't really find it all that beautiful, either.

On the other hand, Boulez's Le marteau sans Maitre is assuredly beautiful and sublime. Forget Xenakis or Cage, if Beethoven or Mozart had been exposed to Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto, you can be sure that they would have considered it shockingly course and dissonant, and probably would have agreed with Hanslick that it was music that "stinks to the ear."

 

I can't comprehend the concept of understanding a piece of music as a combination of various sounds into a unified whole. To me, either I like it or I don't.

But I do appreciate the kind of understanding that comes from reading about a composer's life and learning some of the things that inspired that composer to write the work. For example, I just read that visiting the ruins of Holyrood Palace and saw the room where Rizzio was murdered in front of the pregnant Mary Stuart (Queen of Scots) at a dinner party and so the Scottish symphony was written in memory of Mary Queen of Scotts.

 

I can't comprehend the concept of understanding a piece of music as a combination of various sounds into a unified whole. To me, either I like it or I don't.

But I do appreciate the kind of understanding that comes from reading about a composer's life and learning some of the things that inspired that composer to write the work. For example, I just read that visiting the ruins of Holyrood Palace and saw the room where Rizzio was murdered in front of the pregnant Mary Stuart (Queen of Scots) at a dinner party and so the Scottish symphony was written in memory of Mary Queen of Scotts.

Much how I feel. Why do I have to understand a piece of music to like it? I don't apply 'understanding' to any other music I like so why to CM? Can't I simplistically say "I like that piece of music because it makes me feel good / has a great melody"?

 

There are some folks who regularly listen to a new work at least a few times before making a decision to drop it; even then, many will get back to the work/composer a few months or years later to give it another spin. At the other end, some people give a work a few short minutes and move on. I don't consider one approach any better than the other. After all, as listeners we can do whatever the hell we want.

Some days I'm keen to hear new music; on other days just the mention of a Boulez or Stockhausen makes me grimace.

 

Why make this stuff needlessly complicated? Do you analyze Johnny Mercer this way?

Just soak in the notes and enjoy!

 

I have a different twist on mystery. I think a work of art is not interesting unless it has some element of mystery. That's what kept me listening to contemporary music; I didn't understand it.

Now that I understand more about it, I wonder about the other elements that are still a mystery, like "how the hell did he do that?"

 

"Understanding" music can mean several things, but whatever it means it exists along a continuum. Wherever along the continuum our understanding falls, deciding whether we've understood "enough" is neither a scientific nor a moral matter. It's just a question of our personal inclinations and values. I find there's too much music, and too little time, to worry about it.

I was likely to spend more time "figuring out" a piece of music when I was young and didn't know much music, or much about it. When you're receiving a lot of new information every time you listen - hearing new things to respond to - your feelings about the music may change noticeably. Not much escapes my ear now (attaching names to what I hear may take longer, but isn't necessary for musical perception), and so I quickly take in the qualities of a work that will determine my response to it. Most music that I deem to be well-written will sound well-written right off the bat; good music is generally strong and arresting from its first notes. That's no guarantee that I'll like a piece, of course, but if it's going to strike me as interesting it will begin to interest me before I'm far into it. If a piece doesn't seem to be delivering the goods in what I feel to be a reasonable time, I'll be asking whether it's a work I might want to try again some time, or whether I'd rather not waste the time at all.

For me, it rarely happens that repeated listening changes radically my feelings about a work, even over the long term. What it may do is reduce the strangeness or unpleasantness of my first exposure; I simply get used to the sounds, or perhaps perceive some structural elements that can entertain my mind even while my basic feeling response doesn't change much. Music is very personal; it reaches some very deep-seated places in us, and our responses to it tend to be fairly tenacious over periods of years simply because our emotional makeup is slow to change too. We do change, and our musical tastes change accordingly, but I find this has more to do with natural personal development than with determined efforts to "understand" music.

 

"Understanding" music can mean several things, but whatever it means it exists along a continuum. Wherever along the continuum our understanding falls, deciding whether we've understood "enough" is neither a scientific nor a moral matter. It's just a question of our personal inclinations and values. I find there's too much music, and too little time, to worry about it.

I was likely to spend more time "figuring out" a piece of music when I was young and didn't know much music, or much about it. When you're receiving a lot of new information every time you listen - hearing new things to respond to - your feelings about the music may change noticeably. Not much escapes my ear now (attaching names to what I hear may take longer, but isn't necessary for musical perception), and so I quickly take in the qualities of a work that will determine my response to it. Most music that I deem to be well-written will sound well-written right off the bat; good music is generally strong and arresting from its first notes. That's no guarantee that I'll like a piece, of course, but if it's going to strike me as interesting it will begin to interest me before I'm far into it. If a piece doesn't seem to be delivering the goods in what I feel to be a reasonable time, I'll be asking whether it's a work I might want to try again some time, or whether I'd rather not waste the time at all.

For me, it rarely happens that repeated listening changes radically my feelings about a work, even over the long term. What it may do is reduce the strangeness or unpleasantness of my first exposure; I simply get used to the sounds, or perhaps perceive some structural elements that can entertain my mind even while my basic feeling response doesn't change much. Music is very personal; it reaches some very deep-seated places in us, and our responses to it tend to be fairly tenacious over periods of years simply because our emotional makeup is slow to change too. We do change, and our musical tastes change accordingly, but I find this has more to do with natural personal development than with determined efforts to "understand" music.

You and I are exactly opposite on this issue then, and I find that interesting. It may surprise some people to know, since my taste in classical music is so varied, but I can probably count on my hand the number of works I found immediately gratifying. I usually get a little bored or my mind wanders on my first listen of a work. I usually only really love works after giving them a few listens or more. That's why I found/find it so baffling that so many people seem to listen once and stop. It goes against my natural disposition. If I took that approach I probably wouldn't be here now.

 

Re classical, I discriminate with or without "understanding". There are only 24 hours in a day, 8 of which are for sleeping. And a good portion of the rest for various tasks and unrelated pleasures. Sorry, Pugg, some must go.

 

A good question. But does the music need understanding of a particular type or knowledge or experience or whatever? If it does, then so be it, in which case the listener cannot be expected to know every time. Or if great music (such as those by Bach) are in fact complex (fugues, counterpoint etc.) but yet so accessible by anyone without much or any understanding of the complexities, then is understanding necessary?

 

I used to be very obsessive about listening to the same music ridiculous numbers of times to try and enhance my appreciation of it. These days I just listen to a piece once before deciding whether I like it or not, as I've found that my opinions rarely change that much.

 

If Schoenberg's music doesn't have melodies, then I don't know what I've been singing in the shower all this time.

 

If that's an invitation to come and join you in the shower to help determine, include me out!

 

Understanding does not always equal appreciation, but disregard without understanding seems a bit premature.

Wagner for one would probably say regard has to precede understanding. ("Ich fühl's und kann's nicht versteh'n.")

 

I think it's always very much a two-way street. It is the artist's responsibility to reach and move his audience. If he fails, he has only himself to blame. However, it's perfectly reasonable for the artist to intend his work for, and direct his work to, an audience that is well-versed in the cultural, and even social, political and economic, contexts in which the work was created. There is nothing snobby or wrong in aiming for an audience that is sophisticated in that sense. They are the ones in a position to understand and appreciate the artist's message.

By the same token, if the work is a late 19th-century French opera, and you don't speak or understand French, and know little about late 19th-century France, you might still appreciate the opera, even if you don't fully understand everything the composer was trying to convey. After all, the libretto can be translated, and late 19th-century France isn't too wildly unfamiliar. And with a little study and listening experience, you can become a lot more familiar with that opera. But if the art work comes from sub-Saharan Africa, or 12th-century Japan or ancient Tibet, it might take a lot more study of cultural context to get something out of it. Whether you want to put in the effort is entirely your choice.

Avant garde artists produce work a bit like that of 12th century Japan. They are venturing out to the boundaries of their cultural context, well beyond the familiar comfort zone of most of the people around them. The risk of failure is great, but so is the potential reward - a great expansion of their society's cultural horizon. Again, the choice is your whether you want to attempt the journey. But it's pretty silly to ridicule those who do, especially where the avant garde artist in question has already found his audience and achieved that cultural expansion.

 

As a musician, acquainted with a technical, inclusive definition of "melody," I'm perfectly capable of peceiving that there is melody in Schoenberg's 12-tone works. The opening of his violin concerto - take, say, the first two minutes - has melody:

You can sing that in the shower. You can sing any succession of pitches in the shower, if you can remember them. I very much doubt, though, whether most people would be capable of remembering a succession of pitches like that. But they could probably remember on very brief acquaintance a melody like this:

or this:

or, with a little more difficulty, this:

It shouldn't be hard to hear what makes the Mendelssohn, the Sibelius, and the Bartok more memorable than the Schoenberg, though most people without musical training wouldn't be able to explain it. The question is whether most of us, who rely on our natural sense of what makes pitches hang together in something we recognize as a melody - our feeling for structure, internal relationships, balance, things having a beginning, a middle, and an end, progression toward a goal, pitches relating to an underlying harmonic plan and following each other in a way that feels logical and right - are talking nonsense when we say that the Mendelssohn, Sibelius and Bartok are melodious and the Schoenberg is not.

Technically, what the violin is playing in the Schoenberg is "the melody." But how well does it exemplify those qualities that make for clear, strong, memorable musical entities that make people say "That's a beautiful (or a charming, powerful, or haunting) melody," and have them singing in the shower without even realizing they're doing it? Pretty poorly, I'd say. Alongside that, arguments about the "correct definition" of melody are academic. One hears music, not definitions.

 

Wide leaps outlining perfect quintal chords are only a little bit more intense than leaps outlining tertian chords, the ear is very accustomed to pentatonicism.

Technically all chords can be viewed as rearrangements of the quintal chord that contains the 12 tones, though this perspective is only useful when a chord structure contains superimposed fourths and fifths which is not a rare occurrence in modern and contemporary music.

 

Schoenberg's "melodies" may have contour, beginning and endpoints, etc, but the one crucial element they lack is tonal meaning.

In the key of C, on a C chord, each note of a melody has its own weight. For example E, the M3, has a more crucial meaning than D, a transitional or passing tone. The same with other triad notes C and G.

In this regard, these 'melodies' of Schoenberg's are linear constructs, derived from the row, and are related to the rest of the music by being derived from row considerations, not tonal meanings.

But Schoenberg's 'melodies' are not tonal, so that makes them something else (linear constructs) if your definition of "melody" assumes that the melody is tonal and reflects and reinforces the music in a tonal, harmonic way. Look at all these definitions of "melody," and note that they all at least imply that a melody be "pleasing" or have musical meaning in a tonal way, to the ear and brain.

That doesn't mean that Schoenberg's linear constructs are not "beautiful" in their own, specialized way.

I can appreciate a nice contour, but that doesn't mean I'm going to go around saying that they are "totally normal" and that there is "no difference" between this and Mozart.

That sort of defense of Schoenberg implies that "his music is only good enough if it is equivalent to tonality, so I must prove there is no difference in order to justify it".

Modern music needs no such justification if it is accepted on its own (non-tonal) terms.

 

I don't think it is appropriate to mix Schubert's melody in the same sentence as Schoenberg's melodies. The former is based on traditional models and that which is considered as melody by the majority of society, while the latter is a different soundscape which is not melody in the traditional sense but may well be considered as melody in a different sense by other listeners. The rest are discussion points and perception.

 

No, I consider it melody in the exact same sense.

 

Is anyone else as turned on as I am by the sight of two mods having an argument about semantics?




:devil: