Champion Rabbit wrote:My irish wife prefers lasagne.

Are we talking frozen lasagne made from offal and mechanically recovered meat or prime steak with black truffle sauce and dauphinoise potatoes?

So we need to make distinctions otherwise we will still be stuck with a log of shit.

Cranius wrote:

Champion Rabbit wrote:My irish wife prefers lasagne.

Are we talking frozen lasagne made from offal and mechanically recovered meat or prime steak with black truffle sauce and dauphinoise potatoes?

So we need to make distinctions otherwise we will still be stuck with a log of shit.

We need not make a distinction if we assume that the quality of both dishes (steak and potatoes/lasagne) is comparable.

The 'log of shit' thing wasn't all that funny the first time by the way...

Champion Rabbit wrote:We need not make a distinction if we assume that the quality of both dishes (steak and potatoes/lasagne) is comparable.

So in that case we are making an assumption not a distinction.

see below

spoot wrote:A Love Supreme is closer in spirit to Marquee Moon than it is to Beethoven's 9th.

Probably because Marquee Moon and Love Supreme were composed in the same half of the same century, rather than hundreds of years earlier...

If we are going to insist on comparing orchestral music to rock, then we must use examples that are contemporary (rock being a contemporary genre).

If we are talking about Beethoven or Bach etc then we should be comparing their work to the folk music of that time, no?

Cranius wrote:

Champion Rabbit wrote:We need not make a distinction if we assume that the quality of both dishes (steak and potatoes/lasagne) is comparable.

So in that case we are making an assumption not a distinction.

Why yes!! Yes we are!!

Let's talk more about my intentionally stupid analogy shall we!

It's fascinating.

Perhaps you can do the 'log of shit' thing again too!

Oh good.

geiginni wrote: How is a $20k grant supposed to support a New Yorker living in Manhatten for six months, in addition to a assistant professorship in a music department at a public school. Let's not kid ourselves - a non-principal member in a major orchestra is lucky to be within the definition of middle class.

It's $20,000 more than any rock musician gets. Unless you live in Canada, where rock band subsidies exist, rock musicians have to earn everything they get, one way or another.

To deny that this subsidy is a pampering of one category of artist over another is beyond reason.

Champion Rabbit wrote:

spoot wrote:A Love Supreme is closer in spirit to Marquee Moon than it is to Beethoven's 9th.

Probably because Marquee Moon and Love Supreme were composed in the same half of the same century, rather than hundreds of years earlier...

But you were talking about classical music, not just modern classical, & lumping it in with jazz, which is all modern. Still, A Love Supreme is closer in spirit to Marquee Moon than it is to Steve Reich's Music for 13 Musicians.

steve wrote:

Champion Rabbit wrote:Rock music is less sophisticated, developed and demanding than both jazz and formal orchestral music; I would be fascinated to hear an argument that successfully countered that claim.

Well, you're speaking in generalities, so I will too.

This may be asinine, but I feel compelled to elaborate on your generalizations in order to dispell certain inacurracies contain therein:

steve wrote:1) Rock bands have unique voicings, while classical ensembles are meant to be interchangeably unidentifyable, and Jass combos are often assembled on an ad-hoc basis, and as such don't survive long enough to develop an internal vocabulary they can commit to (and so, they spend a lot of time noodling). This lack of differentiation makes rock bands unique, in that the performing group is generally regarded as a permanent one, there is generally no auteur (the group is responsible for composition, arrangement, performance and cartage even), and so the identity of the band is dependent on interaction, communication and performance subtleties unique to the band.

Though this differentiation makes rock bands unique, in my estimation, it is what also makes most rock bands' output diminish in quality over time. The establishment and perpetuation of its' unique voicing is often a limiting factor to a group's development.

steve wrote:2) (this is related to #1) Rock bands are often immediately identifyable by their playing style, which can mean anything from the manner of presentation in an ensemble, to tonal and timbral choices or performance philosophy. I first heard this argument from Tim Midgett, and I think he is right: It is difficult to tell one orchestra or jass combo from another without being familiar with the specific piece being played, but most people can identify rock groups -- even playing music they have never heard before -- by the subtleties of their ensemble playing. The Rolling Stones sound like the Rolling Stones, not any other band. Zeni Geva sound like Zeni Geva, and no one else does. Lightning Bolt sounds like Lightning Bolt... okay, bad example because they sound sort-of like the Ruins, but still....

This argument lapses for me when placed in the context of origination. Since classical performers are not the originators (composers) of the music - there is less unique to what they bring then their rock counterparts, who are the composers. When approached as compositions, this argument does not hold up. I can easily recognize when I am hearing Beethoven, even if it is a piece I've never heard. I can often place it in the context of one of his three major periods as well.

There are unique stylistic subtleties to many individual performers also. One can readily distinguish the style with which rubinstein approaches a Chopin Nocturne to that which Van Cliburn did. Composer's were often performers as well, and one might expect that Bartok's approach to his own concertos may not be the same as another's.

steve wrote:3) Classical composers don't have to do everything themselves. An orchestra is assembled to play their music for them; they just have to put the notes on paper. Clearly this is less demanding than doing the Chicago - Minneapolis - Iowa City weekender in a Ford Econoline 350, after writing all the music, booking the gigs and enduring the years it took to get the attention of a fickle and demanding audience.....

This statement assumes that: Music that is composed WILL be performed, no less for the amusement of the composer. It is also assumed that the composer's patronage affords luxurious comfort, that the composer does not labor under a deadline, and that the creative process is leisurely and painless - none of which I have ever seen or heard described, anywhere. Your argument wouldn't be so absurd if I were not forced to envision the score to Gotterdammerung, Rite of Spring, or Ameriques and not realize that someone sat there creating the composition manuscript, orchestrating all the parts (piccolo, flute, alto flute, clarinet, bass clarinet, oboe, bassoon, horn, trumpet, trombone, tuba, harp, piano, timpani, percussion, violins 1&2, violas, cellos, bass - just for an example) that take up to 300+ pages. Often lack of money would force a composer to copy all the parts themselves (another massive undertaking). Composers are often under the deadlines of patrons, the pressures and questionable accounting practices of publishers (sound familiar?), and endure an often more "fickle and demanding audience".

steve wrote:4) Jass artists and classical / academic composers are part of a subsidised class fed by patrons, like the clergy, and so are insulated from the economic risk that rock bands are accustomed to. They cannot "fail" in a way that matters or will hurt them. In a very real sense, it doesn't matter if nobody likes them or their music, as long as someone can be convinced that they warrant funding. As the sources of funding and the audience for the music are generally two different groups, the art becomes playing the funding network, rather than the music. Functions (weddings, openings, corporate events, city events, church events) require anonymous music, and it is always of the Jass or classical types, so there is a ready, risk-free income stream for anyone who can stomach it. There is also a grotesque kind of cultural arbitration brought to bear by the phenominally wealthy, who patronise Jass artists, orchestras and academic composers. While I respect Ken Vandermark as a musician, I think everyone would agree that no rock musician (even one equal to his industriousness) would ever be considered for a MacArthur grant such as he was awarded. Cities fund orchestras, as do universities and cultural institutions commission composers to do their work. This is clearly a priviliged, pampered class of artist whose work is divorced from any cost to them (and often divorced from cost to their audience -- their listening rather than lobbying audience) and requires little rigor. As such they suffer less scrutiny and can get by with less substance. Of course it is less demanding on them than being in a rock band. Of course it is. They are clearly pussies, and I respect the saddest rock band doing its own legitimate take on self-determination infinitely more....

This description serves only the true "academic" professional composer, and does little to represent many of the most respected artists of the last two centuries. It would be fun to telegraph this statement to Bartok in 1941, when barely scraping by transcribing folk tunes for the NYU library. The paltry grants and commissions that composers receive can hardly describe them as privileged or pampered. How is a $20k grant supposed to support a New Yorker living in manhattan for six months, in addition to their assistant professorship in a music department at a public institution.

Let's not kid ourselves - a non-principal member in a major orchestra is lucky to be within the definition of middle class. Just because they're not a punk band living out of mom's old minivan? Let's remember the punk band isn't a "career". The punk band won't be doing this when their 60. The punk band didn't practice 2-6 hours a day, starting at 4-6 years old, go through 6-7+ years of college, and bust their ass auditioning to be stuck in the van over a weekend.

Many city and university orchestras and music programs are very often just barely solvent if at all, sometimes running deficits, and are in constant jeopardy of being no more. Just because they retain the patronage of an intellectual and economic "elite" does not guarantee their perpetual survival - especially when the general public takes such a cavalier attitude to their continued survival and worth.

steve wrote:5) Since rock bands are electrified, their choices in equipment are effectively creating unique instruments for each band, and as composer, arranger and performer, the unique qualities can be exploited on all three levels -- composition, arrangement and execution. This is a level of sophistication no classical composer ever imagined ("Build me a kind of a klavier mit a krumhorn attached to it... mit some rocks in it, and if it sounds good, we vill use it tonight, and I vill compose ein coda to exploit it!"), and Jass artists decline to indulge (the less said about Weather Report and Pat Metheny Group the better). Billy Gibbons's guitar+amplifier+unique playing style+peso-as-guitar-pick makes him not just a distinctive voice but a good example. The same is true for Steve Von Till (substitute mead horn for peso). The same is true for Shannon Wright (substitute high-kick). I guess it's true for everyone in the idiom, more or less.....

A composer's understanding of orchestration and timbres can make the orchestral ensemble more expressive than any combination of guitar, amp, and effects ever could be. Certain demands placed upon the creator's desire to achieve new sounds is motivation for the composer as well as the rock musician. Wagner's demands brought about new types of tuba, clarinet, trombone, etc... Stravinsky used cymbalom and sarrusophone, Varese used magnetic tape, sirens etc.... Debussy's desire to produce new sounds from the piano created entirely new compositional and performance demands. Whom before Debussy made a piano to sound like a bell or bells? The 20th century has been a watershed of refinement of instrumentation and techniques allowing composers to challenge the abilities of the performer and what sounds their instrument is capable of. If it draws more admiration from me than the rock musician - it is largely because it is done without the convenience of signal modifying electronics, and must be perfected as a physical technique.

But you were talking about classical music, not just modern classical, & lumping it in with jazz, which is all modern. Still, A Love Supreme is closer in spirit to Marquee Moon than it is to Steve Reich's Music for 13 Musicians.

dude, Steve Reich rocks hard.