Comments on Mixed Meters: Occupy New Music

Interesting post. My take on new music is that p...

2012-01-01T18:09:10.257-08:00

Interesting post.

My take on new music is that people enjoy melody. Our caveman brains like hearing songs and stories around the campfire. The craziest science fiction film can be broken down to a story that anyone can understand, Star Wars is a basic hero's journey right from Greek theater. All of the composers you listed (except for Bartok and Mahler) created great, singable melodies. They found new ways to create them and present them, but the melody helps us identify with the piece.

Melody seems antithetic to new music, like you can't create art with melody at the same time. But people want to hear that, which is why a John Williams concert sells out faster than John Cage ever will.

Another problem is the way music is distributed, which makes it difficult for artists in any genre to break out. There's not a radio station in LA that plays new rock and roll let alone new concert music. (I guess Jim Sveda kicks out some new pieces sometimes.)

Finally, composers today should get good at using samples. There's no excuse why you can't have a really convincing orchestral mockup of your piece to help get it commissioned. I know nothing about concert music, only film scoring, so I might be completely wrong on this. But at least you'll hear what it can sound like.

Although most subscribers pay for what they know, ...

2011-12-01T15:28:05.334-08:00

Although most subscribers pay for what they know, when they are exposed to newer works that are good, and highlight some virtuosity or musicality, they love it.
I've seen this first hand at a few concerts by the L.A. Phil and Peter Serkin's performances of Messian and Henze, played alongside Bruckner or Stravinsky.

It's out there in abundance. It's just no...

2011-11-30T15:05:21.114-08:00

It's out there in abundance. It's just not in the traditional concert hall. It used to be in cassette culture. Now it is in creative commons culture. One good place to start is clinicalarchives.blogspot.com, which I have nothing to do with other than being a listener. www.archive.org is also a good place to find a lot of it. To get the new music of today you have to be in tune with how to be an audient of today, and it's not the way it was 100 years ago.

Thanks for doing the math. Trying to hear "n...

2011-11-30T09:02:14.675-08:00

Thanks for doing the math. Trying to hear "new" classical music in a large concert hall or on the radio or getting it performed (or heaven forbid reviewed) is so difficult it feels like 1%.In an odd way it makes me really realize how small 1% is.

That's probably the biggest reason why I'm...

2011-11-30T06:23:27.658-08:00

That's probably the biggest reason why I'm doing mostly computer music these days. While I love working with musicians, I'm kind of tired of being limited to solo or small chamber works.

Not holding my breath for orchestras to play my stuff, either.