Sacred vrs. Profane; Light vrs. Darkness?
  • francis
    Posts: 10,867
    Milton Babbit recently passed away, God rest his soul. I had an exchange with one of my colleagues yesterday who touted him as brilliant, and perhaps he may have been; but I do not believe it was so in many of his musical compositions. He may have been a brilliant man, I will not argue that point, but is the summit of his innovation, total serialism, truly a branch of the art and science of music deserving of high praise? Is total serialism truly a new discipline in the study of music, or is it a distraction along the way to advancing to the real thing?

    I studied music composition and theory at the Peabody Preparatory and the Conservatory of Music in the hayday of avant garde. I dwelt there right in the midst of the 'experimenters' and scrutinized many of their methods. They had 'advanced' beyond the staff and had arrived at the new modern notation: graph paper and the plotting of sound on a timeline.

    Integral or total serialism was a school of thought that was an extension of Schoenberg and others in the early 20th century. Many of the proponents of 12 tone serialism eventually abandoned it altogether -- perhaps they got bored. Babbit brought it to a new height (or low, in my mind).

    Bach, on the other hand, was truly the greatest mathematician in the realm of composing music. Understanding and using the science of the harmonic species along WITH creative artistic genius is what music is all about; not the sterile experimentation that wriggles and writhes in the dark, cavernous labratories of universities where their searching empty minds create monstrosities and dub them as products of genius. (I guess Dr. Frankenstein could be touted as a genius too, but I think we could all agree that there is no association with the concept of beauty in that regard.)

    So, the long and short of it comes down to this: sacred music and beauty are inseperable. So the logic goes, that serialism is anti-beauty and anti-sacred.

    Mathematics alone music does not make.
  • Jeffrey Quick
    Posts: 2,095
    Eh, I dunno. I find that his music generally succeeds in being musical in spite of itself. Not my usual cuppa, but I find no need to villify a man who by all accounts was a true gentleman.
    Does anyone know this new publication of an old piece by Babbitt, Music for the Mass? http://www.halleonard.com/product/viewproduct.do?itemid=50490047&lid=12&promotion=3580004&subsiteid=5&. It looks a bit gnarly, but tonal. Or what about Donad Martino's 7 Pious Pieces or The White Island? They're both serial, but also tonal.

    My feeling on serialism is that, as a tool, it doesn't accomplish what I want to accomplish. I think I understand why Schoenberg had to do it. There's a fair bit of serial music that I admire. But it's not me. And I don't think it's the Church, though I would never say never.
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,482
    Serialism wasn't math. It was numerology.
    And the compositions it produced have as much to with music as Tarot reading has to do with prophecy.
  • francis
    Posts: 10,867
    actually, his music for mass does not fall into the genre of serialism if it follows along the line of the Kyrie. Has anyone used his music for mass?
  • francis
    Posts: 10,867
    Jeffrey

    Not vilifying the man, the focus is on serialism. I know nothing about his life at all and I am simply examining his and others work of this genre. I am vilifying the genre however. If you want to make a judgement on a person based on his work, I suppose its all fair game.
  • francis
    Posts: 10,867
    Adam

    Thats odd. My colleague said it was the "music of the mathematics" that was the essence of his work. Perhaps you can elaborate on the difference you are espousing?
  • DougS
    Posts: 793
    Implying that Babbitt had an "empty mind" sounds like vilification to me, and couldn't be further from the truth. The music, well, that's another thing.
  • francis
    Posts: 10,867
    No, actually, "emptying the mind" is the attainment of nirvanah, a highly sought after state of being in Buddhism. Perhaps serialism could be somehow aligned with Buddhism.

    http://www.bookofspiritualenlightenment.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=59:how-do-you-reach-nirvana&catid=46:how-do-you-reach-nirvana&Itemid=43

    Lets keep Babbit out of the discussion. His death was the only the reason this subject emerged. It is the "school of thought" (or the lack thereof, :) ) which is the object of this comparison.
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,482
    The math that makes music worth listening to is the inherent physical ratios (relationships) between one note and another, or between groups of notes and other groups of notes.
    While tempered tuning has ridden somewhat roughshod over that intrinsic mathematics, the modern system is still grounded in the fact that some ratios are inherently stable and others are not, some combinations of notes are inherently pleasing to the ear, and others not.

    The whole of Western music has been building upon those initial observations. Some decisions may have been arbitrary (why is a fourth discordant, anyway?), but once they have been committed to, the further development of the implications of each decision or practice have been grounded in either:
    a) mathematical logic
    b) the "it sounds good" principle

    Contrapuntal masters like Bach and Palestrina have had to take the rules, observations, expectations, and so forth of the music they inherited (which was, originally, grounded in incontrovertible rules of physics) and adhere to them in ways that were sensible, while still making something fresh and inspired.


    On the other hand...
    Serialism arbitrarily assigns values to pitches, orders them in ways that generally have no intrinsic sense, and then uses complex computations (or the whim of the composer) to spin out compositions with little regard for the audience.


    Here is a string of random numbers:
    359531732048


    Here is that same string of random numbers, altered by a complex algorithm:
    21105432

    The fact that I used a complex "mathematical" (sort of) algorithm to arrive at the second string of numbers doesn't make the first set any less random, and it doesn't add any value to the second set. It's just number games, the same way that it is just a number game to do something equally ridiculous like:
    -Translate the Greek text of Revelation into Hebrew
    -Assign number values to the Hebrew letters
    -Read the numbers backwards, while adding 3 to each seventh letter
    -declaring that doing so reveals a code which will tell us when the end of the world is coming or that Pope Benedict needs to eat more vegetables.


    Serialism isn't about math. It's about number games. The fact that most musicians don't know the difference between mathematics (as a study) and computation (as a tool) allows intellectual charlatans to delude people (including themselves) into believing that there is something actually meaningful in the process of (for example) mapping the digits of pi onto a melody.


    Hence- serialism replaces a true artistic and intellectual pursuit with a perversion of it. It is numerology instead of math, divination instead of prophecy, witchcraft instead of miracles.
  • francis
    Posts: 10,867
    Adam said:

    Serialism isn't about math. It's about number games. The fact that most musicians don't know the difference between mathematics (as a study) and computation (as a tool) allows intellectual charlatans to delude people (including themselves) into believing that there is something actually meaningful in the process of (for example) mapping the digits of pi onto a melody.

    Hence- serialism replaces a true artistic and intellectual pursuit with a perversion of it. It is numerology instead of math, divination instead of prophecy, witchcraft instead of miracles.


    Wow Adam. I didn't go so far as to say it is a perversion, but I guess the Frankentein analogy comes close. And you also say that divination is central to it? Do you have proof?
  • DougS
    Posts: 793
    Francis, YOU are the one who made the implication that Babbitt had an empty mind:

    not the sterile experimentation that wriggles and writhes in the dark, cavernous labratories of universities where their searching empty minds create monstrosities and dub them as products of genius.


    Who are "they," if not Babbitt and his ilk? If you want to keep the man himself out of it, then incendiary remarks like yours quoted above don't belong.

    But I digress...
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,482
    And you also say that divination is central to it? Do you have proof?

    I don't mean literally that serialism is a form of witchcraft or divination.

    Although there is plenty of "We rolled these dice to come up with this melody." And use of various divination systems such as the I Ching.
    (I know, I know- that's aleatoric music, but aleatoric music is the intellectual child of serialsism).

    But I simply meant draw a comparison-
    Serialism:Music::Divination:Prophecy


    Serialism in music is simply one artform's version of the prevailing philosophy of the 20th century:
    Godlessness and pointlessness and ugliness. Hopelessness and despair.
  • francis
    Posts: 10,867
    Doug

    I know nothing about Babbit AT ALL. He was the person who died who was somewhat of a father figure of serialism of late. I only know of the 'empty minds' of those I personally knew who were entangled and swept up in the practice of serialism in the universitIES I attended in the 70s and 80s, and the dark places into which I was led by those of the ilk. I know nothing of Babbit's background, lifestyle or pursuits. Babbit is not my subject. Serialism is. But I will grant you that it is difficult to separate a man from his art.
  • Richard MixRichard Mix
    Posts: 2,824
    >Bach and Palestrina have had to take the rules, observations, expectations, and so forth... and adhere to them in ways that were sensible...

    Well, sensible to whom? If JSB spells out his name by assigning numerical values to letters, we regard that as his affair and no one would (I'm _fairly_ sure) propose exhuming and burning his remains for witchcraft. It seems Babbitt's detractors find it easier to attack his recipes on some philosophical grounds than to criticize the resulting music, in which many of us delight.

    The notion of 'inherent pleasingness' seems a bit suspect to me, who am on the one hand blind to the wide appeal of "Here I am, Lord", and on the other hand am pleased by Stravinsky's way of combining tones, which seems to bring out the devil in Francis :-)
  • francis
    Posts: 10,867
    Stravinsky WAS a genius. No debating that. Although you have already heard my rantings about the influences (dark) that plagued his life and the way in which he admitted being a medium to that which he unleashed.
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,482
    Stravinsky and Schutte, at least, (as well Bach and Palestrina) were cognizant of the fact that they were writing music to listen to.
    One composer or another may appeal to different demographics based on taste, but there are people out there who listen to each simply because they enjoy the sound.

    The practitioners of serialism seem to turn up their noses at the very thought that music ought to be pleasing to listen to (or perhaps not just pleasing, but.. you know... worth listening to).
    Those of you on the forum who attended composition workshops in college, where the department head was a serialist (or some other 20th-century intellectual)... did any conversation in the class ever center on, "Does anybody actually like this piece? Would anyone pay money to go hear it in concert?" Or anything remotely related to the fact that music exists as something more than a symbolic crossword puzzle?
  • francis
    Posts: 10,867
    Adam:

    I don't think you understand how to listen to Babbit.

    Here is what I was instructed:

    "Sorry Francis, you are only listening to the sounds, not the "music of the mathematics" that Babbit was capable. One doesn't listen the same way to this as one would to other types of music."


    Apparently there is some OTHER way to hear his music that is not readily available or known to those who don't "understand" it.
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,482
    Like you have to have been initiated into some secret society with its own arcana and hidden knowledge.
  • francis
    Posts: 10,867
    hmmm... could very well be.

    I did a search on Milton Babbitt and spirituality and this is the only quote I could find.

    In the liner notes for a Bridge release, William Anderson wrote that he once heard Milton say, "We transcend nothing."


    I must say that serialism completely follows his take on that!
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,995
    When studying serialism, I told my college music theory/composition professor behind closed doors, "I don't like this music." She said, "Neither do I."
  • francis
    Posts: 10,867
    o jeesh Richard. I LOVE Stravinksky! I listen to it all the time. But when my head starts spinning around 360 degrees and foaming at the mouth, I begin to wonder what is happening to me!
  • Richard MixRichard Mix
    Posts: 2,824
    Ah, the head of my department was an ethnomusicologist! Maybe that's why I'm allergic to universal values. Palestrinan (well, Fuxian) counterpoint was disposed of in 2 semesters, while a decade of study hasnt sufficed to reduce Javanese counterpoint to rules, so I think Debussy was on to something. Certainly I received encouragement to spend money on tickets to serial music concerts, and if it was intended as vaccination, it didnt take. I'll be wary of 20c intellectuals from now on, though, I promise!

    Incidentally, while there is a Missa Iavenica and and a liturgical gamelan repertoire at the cathedral of Semarang, my neighborhood church in Surakarta performed a nativity play with dancers and music from the classical repertory, while the choir in the loft simultaniously sang from their (unburned) Libers. An Ivesian experience for me, but also not out of keeping with Javanese aesthetics.

    LOL, Francis! Those experiences are very precious to all of us!
  • francis
    Posts: 10,867
    two of his most 'well known?' pieces

    http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/8039753-milton-babbitt-dies
  • francis
    Posts: 10,867
    I just have to relate this one after Richard's devil comment.

    Last year I went to a concert to hear Stravinsky's Soldier's Tale Devil's Dance. It was toward the end of a program bt the GTMF. Just as they started to play the piece, a man in the next row below us fell on the floor and went into an epileptic fit or something. I kid you not. Was it just medical or was this a spiritual manifestation?
  • GavinGavin
    Posts: 2,799
    Just medical.
  • francis
    Posts: 10,867
    Gavin

    How did you come to that conclusion?
  • JamJam
    Posts: 636
    Occam's razor, probably?

    Although I do admit that the situation sounds suspect, indeed.

    edit --

    p.s. just wanted to note that only on MusicaSacra would such a fascinating discussion as this be had, and to such an extent. Y'all are awesome. Carry on.
  • Jeffrey Quick
    Posts: 2,095
    Adam:
    The practitioners of serialism seem to turn up their noses at the very thought that music ought to be pleasing to listen to (or perhaps not just pleasing, but.. you know... worth listening to).


    Hmmm...
    They had to have something much more journalistic, something much more problematical, something much more adventurous. "Who Cares if You Listen," which had nothing to do with, it had little of the letter and nothing of the spirit of the article. Of course, I do care if you listen; above all I care how you listen!
  • Steve CollinsSteve Collins
    Posts: 1,022
    Serialism is dead! Why? Because at the bottom of each box that contains serilaism, there is no toy to enjoy under all that processed grain!
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,424
    Priceless, Steve!

    However, we are on thin ice when we construct a platform with 'intelligibility' as a criterion.
    How intelligible is the highly intelligent-yet-obtuse counterpoint of late medieaval musical games? It isn't... certainly not to the ear.
    And ditto the complexities of gamelin, or of Indian music, or...
    Yet, we are not put off.
    What is it that makes tone row and other music under discussion here not only unintelligible but often (though not always) outright unpleasant.
    It isn't mere unintelligibility.
  • francis
    Posts: 10,867
    MJO

    You are absolutely right about the intellectual perception. Let's not just rely on that.

    Could it be that when you listen to most other types of music you sense you are walking into the light, and when you listen to serialism you sense that you are approaching the abyss of darkness?
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,482
    francis

    While I hesitate, on some musicological grounds, to use the "this is how it makes me feel" criteria to judge an entire genre of music, I can't help but agree with you.

    And, really, I think that's part of the thing with early-20th century non-tonal music:
    The genre developed in the same intellectual atmosphere that gave rise to nihilism. The "God is Dead" philosophy, along with the previously unthinkable horrors of two world wars had a serious effect on art and culture, especially among those who don't have a higher being to look to for hope and salvation.

    The music sounds like the world is falling apart, no doubt because the people who wrote it thought that it was.
  • francis
    Posts: 10,867
    Adam

    Yes, it is sad to see what happened to the world during that time of great darkness, and yes, art and music all reflect it.

    I use all of my faculties to figure out where I should go and where I shouldn't; what I should look at and what I shouldn't; what I should digest and what I shouldn't. That includes, intellect, emotional feeling (a bad norm on its own, as most of the world uses this alone), intuition, knowledge, wisdom, guidance by the Holy Spirit, the Church and others who are aligned with it, and my moral and spiritual underpinnings. And then sometimes, I still miss the mark! All we like sheep...

    I have a couple of semi-avante garde pieces from the Prep when I was there. I should put them up so you can hear them.
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,424
    Is this light vs darkness metaphor categorically true? I shouldn't think so. How very many profoundly dark (and certainly not light) moments are there in grand opera (the finale of Don Giovanni comes to mind - there are many others, such as Faust)? What would symphonic literature (esp. Romantic) be without darkness; even Mozart and Beethoven can be rather potently dark. There is great darkness in Bach (how about the great c-minor prelude for organ?). No. There has to be some other, less subjective, quality. Not all tone row music is bothersome. Some of it is as engaging (and foreign) as unintelligible gamelin. A few weels ago I thought I would listen to something very different for me. So I put on the Bartok piano concertos - and immediately couldn't wait until they were over! Unintelligible? No. Irritating? Yes. But this is a very subjective reaction, not an intelligent one. Is not this light vs darkness conversation hopelessly subjective? Or is there some intelligent benchmark?
  • francis
    Posts: 10,867
    MJO

    I think you are relating to the "light and dark qualities" of the harmonic structure when you speak the way you do here. Perhaps minor or chromatic, or tempo being slow (dark) and then major and tempo being fast (light)?

    The light/dark that I am speaking of is concerned with the movement of the spiritual ethos through the music similar to what is talked about here:

    "But the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him. And the servants of Saul said to him: Behold now an evil spirit from God troubleth thee. Let our lord give orders, and thy servants who are before thee, will seek out a man skilful in playing on the harp, that when the evil spirit from the Lord is upon thee, he may play with his hand, and thou mayst bear it more easily. And Saul said to his servants: Provide me then some man that can play well, and bring him to me. And one of the servants answering, said: Behold I have seen a son of Isai, the Bethlehemite, a skilful player, and one of great strength, and a man fit for war, and prudent in his words, and a comely person: and the Lord is with him. Then Saul sent messengers to Isai, saying: Send me David, thy son, who is in the pastures. And Isai took an ass laden with bread, and a bottle of wine, and a kid of the flock, and sent them by the hand of David, his son, to Saul. And David came to Saul, and stood before him: and he loved him exceedingly, and made him his armourbearer. And Saul sent to Isai, saying: Let David stand before me: for he hath found favour in my sight. So whensoever the evil spirit from the Lord was upon Saul, David took his harp, and played with his hand, and Saul was refreshed, and was better, for the evil spirit departed from him."

    Samuel 1, 16:14-23

    When you listen to 'The Rite of Spring' do you sense the "spiritual darkness" of this work, even through passages that are musically light and rhythmic?
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,482
    I think of the darkness of Faust or Don Giovanni (or of the Symphonie Fantastique, or the Rite of Spring) to be the darkness of shadow- darkness that only exists because it contrasts with light.

    The darkness of atonalism is the darkness of void. It is not evil as opposed to good, but rather a denial that either is meaningful. It is emptiness and erasure.


    As for an intelligent benchmark...
    I fear that such a requirement could quickly become an argument about what constitutes "universal" or a cross-purposes conversation on first principles.

    But...
    To reframe the question into one of value:
    Does this music have value?

    Well.

    If one wants to understand the musical culture of the 20th century, studying serialism (and it's many cousins) is important.

    If one wants to become a great composer, studying serialism may be a university requirement (and a shibboleth among certain crowds), but I personally believe it is a dead-end. At best, it will lead to bad music. At worst, perhaps to the despair and nihilism that characterized its creation.
  • francis
    Posts: 10,867
    Ah, yes, Adam. That is well put. The void.
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,424
    Adam and Francis - your points are well taken.
    Perhaps what constitutes 'universal' or 'first principles' really is what is at the heart of the matter.
    And, is the so-described darkness of some XX. cent. genres in a different category than the darkness of, say, terrifyingly dark moments of Faust.
    I do not sense darkness in 'Rite of Spring'. Only a rather self-conscious faux primitivism. My reaction to the work has always been annoyance.
    Allusions to nihilism may be valid up to a point. That point being the intent of the composers and their successful use of their chosen musical vocabulary.
    But, tone row (or any other) genre is not inherently dark or nihilistic. These are vocabularies which, like XVIII. century common practice, have the potential for great expressive variety, but are not limited ipso facto to darkness and are not essentially of darkness and nil. We may reflect that there is plenty of terrible darkness reflective of the early XX. cent. era in musical styles other than tone rows.
  • francis
    Posts: 10,867
    Yes. Serial is not the only dark music, but it is a form that seems to be inherently so to me, although a lot of the avant-garde is also inherently dark to me also. Some of this is the sheer lack of humaness. Babbitt certainly got that one right. "It trancends nothing", or you might say that "it trancends nothingness", more like an identifiable void that Adam is talking about; a sort of 'black hole music". Minimilism is more like hypnotic or entrancing, and leads one to a void of sorts, and also has a dark quality, but it is a kind of 'grab you and take you down the path' dark that has excitement to it. Philip Glass and Arvo Part so this in a lot of their music which follows strict serial rules. Wagner shows some beauty, but to me, is inherently dark. Sad is different than dark, such as Barbers Adagio. I don't sense any darkness there, but immense sadness and passion. Chopin, to me, is very melancholy and depressed, but very beautiful, but more emotional than intellectual. I guess it could be catorgorized as dark. Even his Marches (and perhaps all marches) evoke a certain seriousness, but not necessarily dark.
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,482
    I'd also like to circle back to my problem with the theoretical basis of serialism.

    Tone rows, and their so-called mathematical transformations, are inherently meaningless.
    And I don't mean that the same way you might say that the tune "Happy Birthday" is inherently meaningless without the proper cultural framework for understanding it.
    I mean- they were deliberately meaningless even within a cultural/musical framework.

    And the idea that you can systematically represent non musical "information" in music, and that the music produced from that representation is worthwhile AS MUSIC, I find to be wholesale nonsense. (Bach writes his name into some music... cute. But it's only four notes. That's very different than what the serialist did).

    And then, again- to pass off randomness and complex computation as mathematically relevant... no. No.
    Again- it isn't math or music- it's number games (at best) and numerology at worst.
    It's the difference between a poem and a crossword puzzle. Between an algebraic proof and a sudoku grid.
    Between exegesis and "The Bible Code."
  • Francesca
    Posts: 51
    I also began my musical career at a school where atonal music was the leading edge. Attendance at a required composition major's degree recital left me depressed, and whatever the spiritual issues might be, just the misuse of the resources he had made me want to cry. Is that what singers and brass players slave to be able to do? It's certainly not what I would have done with such riches, if I had them.

    Serial music, atonal music...it's all passe. Logic dictates it would be. Regardless of whether you think the perfect 5th is inherent in the musical mind of human beings or not, the music is only an exercise in what-might-be. No musician in their right mind would dedicate their lives to performing such difficult works when Mozart, Bach, Plainsong, Gabrielli even Willan might be at hand.

    Music has an impact on the spirit. I wouldn't have the scores in my library, much less subject a choir to them, because they are inherently and deliberately constructed to produce chaos. Because the human mind doesn't especially like chaos, sometimes the attempt to make music meaningless isn't successful, but that doesn't make the attempt any less destructive. Look what else was in vogue, then. Nihilism. God is Dead theology. Some of those people couldn't take their own theology and committed suicide. This is not irrelevant.

    I suppose beauty is subjective, but Pope Benedict assumes we all know what it is when he says church music should be beautiful. This is different from 'what I like'. Example. I played a funeral Mass this week, the priest requested we do a motet with a text by Aquinas. The congregation was lapsed or unchurched, judging by the anemic responses - many were young and unlikely to find the Motecta Trium Vocum their cup of tea. But when we sang 'Tantum Ergo' there was dead silence in the room, and when the last note died away, a sigh. Think you'd get this from Babbitt or Stravinski?
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,424
    Interesting indeed. Wagner has so very many qualities, some of them charming. But his darkness is very real and sometimes frightening - it is a calculated darkness which perhaps really does convey the essence of darkness. But still, the music itself is not that darkness. Arvo Part! The first time I heard him was on KUHF, and I initially thought I was listening to XII. cent. organum! I do like his O Antiphons and select other works, but for the most part find his (and all similar) music to be a study in vacuousness. This is not darkness; but it is nihilistic.
  • miacoyne
    Posts: 1,805
    From chromaticism and finally emancipation (?) from tonality. Every note has equal value. Does it parrellel with the modern mentality of Relativism?
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,482
    mia

    absolutely.
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,424
    What profound insights everyone in this discussion has! But, then - where is music to go? Art does not stay the same. Nor architecture. Nor physics.... All art and science naturally reach a point at which they at least challenge the un-learned's ability to comprehend. Are we to continue in the same mold and never dare to create that which is genuinely fresh and new? After all, if any number of mediaeval clerics had prevailed, we would never have had Dunstable or Tallis; and certainly not Messiaen or Britten. How many times can we rehash 16th century method? There is a limit to the (shall I say) number of permutations of a style we can churn out without becoming utterly passe' and culturally bankrupt. These are academic musings: not the convictions of one enraptured of all 20th century 'advances' in music. (But, I would rather listen to a mass by Stockhausen than Haugen.)
  • GavinGavin
    Posts: 2,799
    I too at one point believed that atonality (whether through serial or other methods) was an overthrow of God's Order, and an assault on the Truth by relativism, communism, and other Bad Things. I even wrote a 3 page screed on an exam at a college saying as much.

    Then I grew up. (ok, I'm 25.. but I developed a lot more open of a mind in the past 5 years)


    Let me tell you a real event to explain why I'm ok with modern music: at my parish, a musically conservative Episcopal church, I improvise before the sermon to cover the Gospel procession. On the last Sunday of the previous church year, for my improvisation I pulled out all the 32-16-8 reeds and fonds in the chancel divisions, put my feet on the low C and Ab of the pedalboard and my open palms on the bottom two octaves of the swell manual, and proceeded to slowly, rhythmicly, play acute clusters (causing the children of the church to giggle with glee). I alternated this with an octatonic melody without tonal center on the great trumpet. I got a large number of complaints about that.

    The Gospel that it followed was the Crucifixion of the Lord and His forgiving of the Good Thief. Music is not about making people happy or expressing light ideas. Sometimes we have more important things to say than a ii6-V7-I43 can express.
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,424
    How daring! I wish I could have heard it. (You MAY [or may not] have overdone it - but that's better than not done at all.)
  • francis
    Posts: 10,867
    ok

    new challenge

    i have been thinking about doing this and now its time...

    all who improvise should record and post

    i will start another thread... because I too sometimes come upon musings that come and go and will never hear again
  • francis
    Posts: 10,867
    hey Gavin... have you heard my strepitus composition? Its kindof... well... shall we say... Babbittish?
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,424
    Such a production would be unavoidably Babbitttish, wouldn't it? I inherited doing this on the pedals for several years. For the youth it was the highlight of the Good Friday Seervice. They would rush around the organ to observe the frightful noise being made. I later made quite an issue of the utter inappropriateness of this and managed to replace it with the rubrical, historial, ecclesiastical slamming of books in choir. All agreed that this was just as effective, and, more civilised. These strepiti consisting of bizarre organ noises, atrocious rattlings and scrapings and electronic disturbances are all a tasteless, silly, amusing, ineffective, transparent, and not really liturgical solution to a liturgical need. Slam books together. It is rubrical and doesn't intrude nor call attention to themselves as these other clever productions do.
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,424
    By the way, Gavin, what grade did you get on your screed? In my experience screeds did not fare well in the grading chambers.
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