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Declaring War on Reductionist Musical Analysis


BLUMENKOHL

Reductionist Musical Analysis  

20 members have voted

  1. 1. Can you really understand a piece of music by breaking it down?

    • Yes
      9
    • No
      6
    • Shit's getting too philosophical for me. Hans Zimmer sucks.
      5


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Reductionism: the idea that you can break something complicated up into smaller natural parts and analyze them to understand the whole thing. 

 

Reductionist Musical Analysis: This John Williams track is awesome. Let's break it down and see why...

 

The Reductionist Analyst: This track really gets its spine tingling power from the blah blah blah syncopation and diminished seventh chords....

 

The Reductionist Analyst Turned Composer: I shall use syncopation and diminished seventh chords to emulate that POWAAAAHHHH!

 

The Reductionist Analyst Turned Composer Turned Failure: The syncopation and diminished seventh chords fall flat and do not achieve power. 

 

 

Blumenkohl's Refined Theory of Musical Analysis: Reductionism doesn't work to describe why music works. It's no more effective than trying to understand consciousness by breaking down the brain into brain areas or neurons.  Understanding the functioning of a neuron cell (a trivial task) does not explain what consciousness is, how it works, or how to reproduce it. It does not explain what happens when you put 100 billion neurons together. I'd posit that music, while not as complicated, starts to encroach on that territory. Which is why you can break down John Williams all you want, you can emulate him all you want, but you still suck as a composer, and you can't explain why when John Williams does it, it works, and when you do it you fall short. 

 

 

Blumenkohl's Challenge to the Young, Creative, Smart Minds gracing JWFan (read: Not Stefan Cosman): How do you develop a less limited method for talking about and analyzing music? I'm not saying reductionism is completely useless, but it's clearly limited on its own. So how can you think about music in a more holistic way? 

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Easy poll question. Absolutely no.

 

At least not in a way that human beings are easily capable of understanding.  In terms of appreciation, you can create set of rules, try to apply them, and convince yourself you understand.

 

Though I suppose reductionism can be useful to the composer in trying to hone his art. It might help explain that x works, even if it doesn't necessarily explain why x works.

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3 minutes ago, Stefancos said:

No! And sadly these days there's far too many members who think otherwise.

 

It's bollocks. Certainly on this level.

 

I mean shoot, just a slightly different performance of a piece of music can completely deflate its power. We must stop this madness! 

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Is this something that actually happens? I.e., that people propose to attain a complete understanding of why a piece of music works by means of a selected decomposition into small parts (as opposed to the more modest objective of gaining some insight in this way)? I suspect that I'm among the majority of posters here in being insufficiently familiar with the practice of musical analysis to judge whether the ill-fated fellow depicted above is a significant issue or a straw man!

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1 hour ago, Blumenkohl said:

How do you develop a less limited method for talking about and analyzing music?

 

Try to relate to other film music examples or classical, works and composers, to give others an idea if they even want to go on reading.

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Understand it in what way?  How it relates to the retroactive abstraction of general principles from past music people call music theory?  Then sure.  In a more meaningful, interesting way?  Not really.

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19 minutes ago, Glóin the Dark said:

Is this something that actually happens? I.e., that people propose to attain a complete understanding of why a piece of music works by means of a selected decomposition into small parts (as opposed to the more modest objective of gaining some insight in this way)? I suspect that I'm among the majority of posters here in being insufficiently familiar with the practice of musical analysis to judge whether the ill-fated fellow depicted above is a significant issue or a straw man!

 

While I wouldn't say that people explicitly or expressly aim to do as you describe, I feel like its massive prevalence in certain circles, particularly in academia, leaves the impression this method is considered the de facto means in which to describe and articulate a given piece of music.

 

Quite frankly, though I definitely grant it has its uses, I don't consider a mere play by play of progressions, etc. to truly be musical analysis.  (On a somewhat related note, and I mean this in no offense to the talented writers here, I don't consider stuff like "A tortured reading of Imperial March plays as Anakin says...." to be cue analysis). I feel like describing plagal cadences, mediant tonics, etc. can be components in a much richer and personalized means of taking a piece of music apart and articulating why a piece of music speaks to you. Try explaining why this song is sexy, for example! 

 

 

What really opened my mind to this was years ago, a fellow musician friend and I were listening to The Pixies, and he started describing various elements of the music. He would be talking about how the repetition in the bass would be creating a certain mood, or a sustained chord made it feel like X (I'm not quite doing it justice, sorry).  His approach struck me as far more "anthropological", and really inspired me to take apart music in a different way that was more relativistic and centered on taking any piece of music on its own terms. 

 

 

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Indeed. Musical analysis offers a language for some of us to describe why a piece makes us feel or react the way we do. It's hardly the only language, but it is an option no more or less valid than any other.

 

29 minutes ago, Nick Parker said:

I don't consider a mere play by play of progressions, etc. to truly be musical analysis.  (On a somewhat related note, and I mean this in no offense to the talented writers here, I don't consider stuff like "A tortured reading of Imperial March plays as Anakin says...." to be cue analysis). I feel like describing plagal cadences, mediant tonics, etc. can be components in a much richer and personalized means of taking a piece of music apart and articulating why a piece of music speaks to you.

 

Agreed. These extensive leitmotivic breakdowns are less useful other than helping us spot contextual references the composer makes. As you say, it says very little about the music itself.

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The only analyses i find interesting are those of era, personal history and movie trivia. Cue-by-cue is empty posturing - usually you read a lot without learning much of substance.

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I think we need to be frank about you're achieving versus what you intended to accomplish. If you feel that reducing John's music to component elements and describing them improves your ability to frame music in music theory (a reductionist enterprise), then I  say "sure." You'll get no argument from me. 


But if you reduce the Imperial March into its components, are you gleaning why or how John Williams' music works? I would contend that you learn nothing meaningful in this regard. You are no closer to understanding how to create a menacing theme for a villain as Williams did for Vader. 


You can take all the components you've identified, but something like the Imperial March isn't a simple sum of its parts. The order of your ingredients matters. The quantity of ingredients matters. The skill of your performers combining the elements matters. Your listener's palate matters. And this is where reductionism falls apart: the interaction between all of this stuff matters.  


The only thing you're improving by analyzing John's music is your ability to analyze music and frame it in a music theory context.  Otherwise we'd see thousands of John Williams caliber composers.

 

But we don't.

 

We see thousands of exceptional musical analysts and theorists who can eloquently pick apart and describe chords and modalities! 

 

 

1 hour ago, KK said:

There's a reason he remains Hollywood's unrivalled tunesmith, because he's familiar with the nature of intervals, riffs, progressions and tools he's amassed over the years to know exactly what fits the bill and his audience. 

 

Absolute non-sense and delusional wishful thinking. 

 

The reason he is Hollywood's unrivaled tunesmith is because while everyone else is busy analyzing his tunes, John is prolifically producing tunes. He isn't sitting around poring over Haydn's work, he is writing, writing, writing! He is on the piano every day except Sunday (though he still goes for it with reduced hours), as he has said in interviews. He has admitted that he doesn't consume much of other people's work. THAT my friend is why he is great: he's a prolific doer. He uses, plays with, and experiments with intervals, riffs and progressions. Someone who writes about them or identifies them, or describes, them or thinks about them gets good at doing exactly those things.  

 

John Williams is a great composer because he composes. Simple as that. 

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21 minutes ago, Blumenkohl said:

The only thing you're improving by analyzing John's music is your ability to analyze music and frame it in a music theory context.  Otherwise we'd see thousands of John Williams caliber composers.  

 

You seem to be assuming that the intention of anyone trying to analyse a piece of music must be to find the secret formula that would allow them to create similar music of the same value. Isn't it possible that the purpose (and the effect) such analysis is, for people who are into that sort of thing, to enhance the enjoyment of the existing music?

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1 hour ago, Blumenkohl said:

The reason he is Hollywood's unrivaled tunesmith is because while everyone else is busy analyzing his music, John is prolifically producing tunes. He isn't sitting around poring over Haydn's work, he is writing, writing, writing! He is on the piano every day except Sunday, as he has said in interviews. He has admitted that he doesn't consume much of other people's work. THAT my friend is why he is great: he does. He uses riffs and progressions. Someone who writes about them or describes them or thinks about them gets good at doing exactly those things.  

 

Well, of course. But I think you're mistaken when you think other composers just sit around studying music. And you're also mistaken if you think John didn't put in the years of music study himself. To get to the level of exercising creation that you point out, he had to put in the time for grasping technique and compositional fundamentals, which Williams would have done poring over Hadyn, Bach, Tchaikovsky, etc. He's taken what he learned from that, taken bits of other musical forms that's interested in him (namely jazz and that like), tried integrating into his own work and practise until he formed the unique brand of Williams music that we are familiar with today. It's a combination of study, practise and trial-and-error over the course of many years. Decades of doing all that, is what's allowed him to develop a pool of riffs and progressions he can rely on today.

 

You're right, study alone will not achieve results. Practise and application is key. But one should not underestimate the value of good study, because that's played a huge role in making Williams the maestro he is. As you point out, his ability to write out one great tune after another comes from years of creation and revision, but also the years that went into mastering his musical vocabulary. It's like a trained sculptor finding his next work in a block of stone vs an amateur just hoping something works out if they keep banging away with a hammer.

 

And I wouldn't be so sure about Williams not listening to others' works. Maybe not so much today, but he's been listening and trying to use the musical contributions of his predecessors and colleagues for some time now. For example, the pervading minimalist colours that seeped into his work in mid-90s to early 00s clearly showed large Adams influences (a contemporary colleague, of sorts), among others. 

 

It should be noted that not everyone who partakes in musical analysis spends hours slaving away on giant reports to be posted on online forums. That, is more of a redundant exercise (unless it leads to useful discussion). And not everyone is doing with the intent to become the next John Williams. But for most composers, it is a valuable tool. And many of our idols have built their musical foundation doing the very same. After all, everyone is just trying to learn their craft to the best of their ability. 

 

1 hour ago, publicist said:

The only analyses i find interesting are those of era, personal history and movie trivia. Cue-by-cue is empty posturing - usually you read a lot without learning much of substance.

 

Yup. Also doesn't help when you treat each cue like it was some grand work of art, when sometimes, a man's just gotta get the job done before the clock strikes.

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17 minutes ago, Glóin the Dark said:

 

You seem to be assuming that the intention of anyone trying to analyse a piece of music must be to find the secret formula that would allow them to create similar music of the same value. Isn't it possible that the purpose (and the effect) such analysis is, for people who are into that sort of thing, to enhance the enjoyment of the existing music?

 

But the question in the poll is whether such reductionism increases one's understanding of the music, not one's appreciation.

 

Appreciation is a subjective thing, we can appreciate music for all kinds of different reasons, so if breaking down music to its component parts and studying it increases your appreciation for it, who's to question it? But we shouldn't mistake that for understanding why the music is effective at achieving a given result.

 

And as I said above, while I don't think reductionism can explain music, I do think such theory can be useful for the composer.

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2 minutes ago, Nick1066 said:

But the question in the poll is whether such reductionism increases one's understanding of the music, not one's appreciation.

 

If that were indeed the question then the answer would be an obvious "Yes"! Of course one can increase one's understanding of a piece of music by identifying smaller parts from which it's made.

 

The question of whether such a reduction can give a complete understanding of the music, without taking into account such things as the order of the ingredients and the quantity of the ingredients and all of the other things mentioned and even more things unmentioned, surely has an equally obvious answer.

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There is no problem whatsoever with deconstructing a piece of music and analyzing why it's inventive, or showing how clever the structure/harmony is, and why it's worth being appreciated as such.

 

The problem comes when a piece of music fails to hook you, or doesn't do anything for you, and you say so, and suddenly, a music theory geek comes around the corner and tells you you HAVE to be entertained by it, or love it, because of how intricate the brass is, or how novel the language, or this that and the other.

Or the other way around, when you love a score, and the same geek tells you how it's so and so many levels below Williams or this and that, and too few notes and some other shit.

 

I don't know this for a fact, but that's probably the reasoning of classical elitists looking down upon film music; and the same musically educated film score fans looking down on what they consider lesser film music, are probably the same who defend film music against classical elitists. It's very ironic.

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I don't think it's helpful to analyze every note, but you can certainly analyze intentions through intervallic relationships and such, key, time signature, etc.  So, while breaking the flying theme from E.T. to a ridiculous degree may not produce any secrets, you can see the jump to the 5th, and the constant rise in scale, as being indicative of having a methodical purpose, representing musically the idea soaring.  That is not an accident; not everything a composer does is happenstance.

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On 27-1-2018 at 7:42 PM, KK said:

Well, deconstructing a piece can offer valuable insight into it. "Musical analysis" helps us understand the tools that are being used, the role that each note, voicing and cadence is designed to play in the bigger picture. It's a methodology to taking something abstract (as most things in art are) and finding a more tangible sense of structure to it

 

I get that this is interesting, and even vital if you are studying to become a musician, or a composer. Of if you have an academic interest in composition.

But what is the value of that if you have no other interest in music than to listen it it?

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By changing the act of listening to music from an emotional experience to an analytical one?

I don't think so.

 

There are many professional musicians who don't listen to music for pleasure, or listen to very different types of music than what they do for work.

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If the analysis doesn't bring up some interesting tidbits like i. e. the old Dies Irae connection, which is an interesting and easily verifiable thing, only scholars need it. 

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21 minutes ago, Stefancos said:

 

I get that this is interesting, and even vital if you are studying to become a musician, or a composer. Of if you have an academic interest in composition.

But what is the value of that if you have no other interest in music than to listen it it?

 

There might not be any. It's just one of the utensils available for some to understand why they connect with what they do.

 

To be clear, my defence of musical analysis above is for using it as a tool to understanding music. Not so much for leisurely listening.

 

I would agree that music works best when you just give yourself to it. That's how it was designed. Analysis is more of a supplemental tool for some.

 

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18 minutes ago, Stefancos said:

By changing the act of listening to music from an emotional experience to an analytical one?

 

No.

 

It's like digestion. (Not meaning that it turns the music to shit.) Perhaps it takes a conscious analytical effort to perceive certain aspects of the music (motives, relationships, etc.) in the first instance. But then, mulling them over a little, you'll absorb them so that you can be aware of them intuitively without needing your analytical hat on. You get to know the music more intimately, which can pave the way for more, and stronger, emotional responses to it. Obviously, how effective or worthwhile this can be depends on both the music and the listener.

 

Not being a professional musician or scholar, I haven't much interest in analysis for its own sake.

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5 hours ago, Stefancos said:

By changing the act of listening to music from an emotional experience to an analytical one?

I don't think so.

 

Here's an analogy: Imagine you're at the top of a hill and you see a beautiful view in front of you; a huge mountain range with many different peaks stretching across the horizon. Now let's imagine you are completely unfamiliar with the area; you will most likely think to yourself "Wow, what a beautiful view", and that's about it. But what if you're familiar with the area? You will be able to identify the peaks in front of you, which one is the highest, which one is the most dangerous, you will be able to point and show where the different mountain trails lead, where north, south, east and west are...But will that all diminish from your emotional response to seeing the view? I don't think so, if anything I think the added knowledge of your surroundings would be enriching.

 

It's similar with analyzing music; knowledge about musical form and structure, about the instruments of the orchestra, about major and minor chords etc...can be enriching because these concepts give you a stronger "grasp" on the musical elements. Of course you still hear the same music, just as the person on the top of the hill can see the same view, but it gives you more things to contemplate about.

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3 hours ago, Loert said:

 

Here's an analogy: Imagine you're at the top of a hill and you see a beautiful view in front of you; a huge mountain range with many different peaks stretching across the horizon. Now let's imagine you are completely unfamiliar with the area; you will most likely think to yourself "Wow, what a beautiful view", and that's about it. But what if you're familiar with the area? You will be able to identify the peaks in front of you, which one is the highest, which one is the most dangerous, you will be able to point and show where the different mountain trails lead, where north, south, east and west are...But will that all diminish from your emotional response to seeing the view? I don't think so, if anything I think the added knowledge of your surroundings would be enriching.

 

It's similar with analyzing music; knowledge about musical form and structure, about the instruments of the orchestra, about major and minor chords etc...can be enriching because these concepts give you a stronger "grasp" on the musical elements. Of course you still hear the same music, just as the person on the top of the hill can see the same view, but it gives you more things to contemplate about.

 

Great analogy, except that I would say musical analysis is more akin to looking at a map of the area around the mountain range than truly knowing the area. While those may seem like they are the same thing, they are in fact very different. The map may help you in some respects of familiarizing yourself with the layout of the area, but you don't really know it. 

 

Then there are a kind of people, let's call them pre-civilized nomads, who roam the mountain range and the surrounding area without a map. They know the area. 

 

Then there are people who look at the map and also explore the area. That's fair, but in the end it is the act physically exploring that gives them the true knowledge of the area. 

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14 hours ago, Blumenkohl said:

Then there are a kind of people, let's call them pre-civilized nomads, who roam the mountain range and the surrounding area without a map. They know the area. 

 

Then there are people who look at the map and also explore the area. That's fair, but in the end it is the act physically exploring that gives them the true knowledge of the area. 

 

There are places that I've known well but which a map or aerial view has given an interesting and unexpected new perspective on. Both map-reading and roaming contribute to "true knowledge" of the area.

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Quote

 I'm not saying reductionism is completely useless, but it's clearly limited on its own. So how can you think about music in a more holistic way? 

 

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15 hours ago, Blumenkohl said:

 

Great analogy, except that I would say musical analysis is more akin to looking at a map of the area around the mountain range than truly knowing the area. While those may seem like they are the same thing, they are in fact very different. The map may help you in some respects of familiarizing yourself with the layout of the area, but you don't really know it. 

 

Then there are a kind of people, let's call them pre-civilized nomads, who roam the mountain range and the surrounding area without a map. They know the area. 

 

Then there are people who look at the map and also explore the area. That's fair, but in the end it is the act physically exploring that gives them the true knowledge of the area. 

 

You are essentially saying that the map is not the territory, which I fully agree with. But I was not making an analogy between music and the territory, only between music and the view/panorama. I'm simply pointing out the difference between seeing a pretty view and not knowing anything about what you're looking at, and being able to point out the landmarks. I am making a general point about the benefit of additional knowledge. 

 

On 27/01/2018 at 5:16 PM, Blumenkohl said:

How do you develop a less limited method for talking about and analyzing music? I'm not saying reductionism is completely useless, but it's clearly limited on its own. So how can you think about music in a more holistic way? 

 

Personally I am not a reductionist by any stretch of the imagination, but I do find some value in reading about musical theory. For instance, Rimsky-Korsakov's principle of close/far/farthest keys from his Practical Harmony is very useful to contemplate for a composer. I just had to look at one figure and I could tell what the gist of R-K's idea was. If you feel that your composition needs a break in the flow, you might go to a key that's "far away"; if you want to create a smoother transition you might go to a "closer" key. Of course that's not the whole story, because you have 1001 other variables to think about. But you get my point. 

 

Or here's another example: there's a series of books by Ron Miller called Modal Jazz Composition & Harmony. In it he describes the method of creating "colour" chords out of musical modes. Before I had read the book (although I haven't really read it, more like skimmed it, partly because the writing style is atrocious) I had never seriously contemplated the idea of creating 5- or 6-note chords out of modes. But after having read about it, it is as if I had unlocked a different perspective of looking at music.

 

Music theory doesn't tell you everything there is about music, but there's no need in ignoring it completely (although every now and again you get a composer like Mily Balakirev who was genius enough to "derive" all his music "empirically", which is impressive, but not recommended for everyone...)

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On 27/1/2018 at 6:16 PM, Blumenkohl said:

Reductionism: the idea that you can break something complicated up into smaller natural parts and analyze them to understand the whole thing. 

 

Reductionist Musical Analysis: This John Williams track is awesome. Let's break it down and see why...

 

The Reductionist Analyst: This track really gets its spine tingling power from the blah blah blah syncopation and diminished seventh chords....

 

The Reductionist Analyst Turned Composer: I shall use syncopation and diminished seventh chords to emulate that POWAAAAHHHH!

 

The Reductionist Analyst Turned Composer Turned Failure: The syncopation and diminished seventh chords fall flat and do not achieve power. 

 

 

Blumenkohl's Refined Theory of Musical Analysis: Reductionism doesn't work to describe why music works. It's no more effective than trying to understand consciousness by breaking down the brain into brain areas or neurons.  Understanding the functioning of a neuron cell (a trivial task) does not explain what consciousness is, how it works, or how to reproduce it. It does not explain what happens when you put 100 billion neurons together. I'd posit that music, while not as complicated, starts to encroach on that territory. Which is why you can break down John Williams all you want, you can emulate him all you want, but you still suck as a composer, and you can't explain why when John Williams does it, it works, and when you do it you fall short. 

 

 

Blumenkohl's Challenge to the Young, Creative, Smart Minds gracing JWFan (read: Not Stefan Cosman): How do you develop a less limited method for talking about and analyzing music? I'm not saying reductionism is completely useless, but it's clearly limited on its own. So how can you think about music in a more holistic way? 

 

Of course reductionism, in the way you define it, is not enough to do anything good, neither in art nor in science. Once you have broken what you want to study (a piece of art or a brain) into smaller pieces, and you have studied them separately, what you miss is their interaction, which often determines the most important features of the final product. The main problem, both in art and in science, is that such interaction is often very difficult to understand, and even to verbalize.

 

However, the smaller pieces exist, so any reasonable discussion about them is worthwhile and can add something to the understanding of the bigger thing. And then, nothing prevents anyone from trying to understand something more by trying to express (at least to him/herself) how the small pieces interact with each other. 

 

An example: suppose a piece of music has an expressive climax at some point, and many people agree that "it works greatly". Let's say there is a very loud and dissonant chord played by a full orchestra, with a certain arrangement of the brass, strings and woodwinds, and a timpani roll. Trying to split it into its constituent elements is not useless at all: you start (for example) by realizing that it is a dissonant chord and what chord it is, then you realize that it has a certain shiny flavour because those three trumpets are playing a consonant triad in their high register, while the basses are playing some notes that are completely out of any scale proper to that triad, and so on. Then you can compare it, in your mind, to what would happen if you took away the trumpets, or if you gave a more consonant part to the basses, or if you omitted the timpani roll. The result would probably not be equally satisfactory, and then you have learned a lesson on (one of the many ways) how to make an expressive climax. 

 

But then, to understand why the expressive climax works, you have to consider the context (i.e., the interaction with the rest of the piece). Then you see that that moment you like arrives after, say, 10 minutes of music. You can get an idea whether it's at the appropriate place, or if it should have been earlier or later. You can see, e.g., that it is the first moment in the piece where the composer uses trumpets and timpani, and this could be a reason why it stands out during the piece. Etcetera. And when you have done it, you have learned another lesson.

 

If you renounce to do this analysis, everything boils down to "I like it / I don't like it" and there is no understanding at all. Better understanding a part, rather than nothing! But the fact is, if you deny the value of breaking down a piece to simpler elements, you should keep in mind that the path from simple elements to their combination is just the way composers work! Whenever you compose, you are combining small elements (say, a horn line with a bassoon line), and when you change a part of your composition, you are always manipulating small elements (say, you add a ninth to a chord). This is what "composing" means: putting together. The piece works if the composer manages to combine all the small elements in a way that is satisfactory to many people (and here, I mantain that history has a huge influence on this aspect, but this is maybe another topic). He has to do it, whether very consciously or in a more intuitive way (which means, without verbalizing everything).

 

 

On 27/1/2018 at 8:28 PM, Blumenkohl said:

The reason he is Hollywood's unrivaled tunesmith is because while everyone else is busy analyzing his tunes, John is prolifically producing tunes. He isn't sitting around poring over Haydn's work, he is writing, writing, writing! He is on the piano every day except Sunday (though he still goes for it with reduced hours), as he has said in interviews. He has admitted that he doesn't consume much of other people's work. THAT my friend is why he is great: he's a prolific doer. He uses, plays with, and experiments with intervals, riffs and progressions. 

 

 

Yes, maybe nowadays, because he is more than accomplished! But of course, he must have spent time in his youth studying the works of the past. Indeed, in terms of musical language, as I think most of us agree, he is not revolutionary at all: he uses (extremely well) all the tricks amassed in centuries of orchestral writing, of melody writing, and of study of harmony. And he uses them so well because he knows them, which means he has studied and analysed the music of the great composers of the past, pieces by pieces and then all together. It does not matter whether he has ever written down an analysis of Mahler's Fifth in words, or of Dave Brubeck's Time Out: there is something in his brain that corresponds exactly to these pieces of information. Of course, then you need a certain talent to get the right combinations of what you know, but you have to start from reducing in order to make progress.

 

 

 

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