Navigating the darkness with music production.

[Numanoid]

I have never tasted Newcastle Exhibition, but according to Oz in Auf Wiedersehen, Pet "it is the best beer you can get".

Too bad they don't sell it up here in the far North.

[jancivil]

I'm a bit surprised that some don't see it as translating emotions into music. What else would it be?

Come on and try to understand. I said I don't try to express anything. The way I think of it is, that's simplistic, it'll be trying too hard, it will be a distraction.

What else would it be? I guess you could program an A.I. with music theory based subroutines, and it could write you a song.

It can be music, with musical values rather than... what emotion does one try to express? Happy Happy Joy?
I don't think you're happy enough! I'll TEACH YOU to be happy!



But regardless of what happens (and I'm about to post what will tend to be received as extreme emotion in music which I never planned in the least, just to illustrate) I do not think like this: "...what music is all about, emotions."

Igor Stravinsky is well-known for having said plainly "Music is powerless to express anything.".

[chk071]

But regardless of what happens (and I'm about to post what will tend to be received as extreme emotion in music which I never planned in the least, just to illustrate) I do not think like this: "...what music is all about, emotions."

I don't do that either. I think the least do. Still, the output will always be the result of the mood. Imagine you're pissed off, and have to write a happy song. Would you think the result would be any good? Unless you're a total professional, with much experience, who knows blind how to tailor a good song, i don't think so.

I don't get that Stravinsky quote BTW. Especially, when i read the whole thing on Wikipedia. What exactly did he want to say with that? What IS music then, if not a way to express what you feel?

[Numanoid]

I don't do that either. I think the least do. Still, the output will always be the result of the mood. Imagine you're pissed off, and have to write a happy song. Would you think the result would be any good? Unless you're a total professional, with much experience, who knows blind how to tailor a good song, i don't think so.

But that is the whole point of being a pro, you have to focus on delivering a product to the set specifications rather than your own feelings at that particular time.

[chk071]

But don't many of those professional productions suffer a bit from a lack of soul? On the other hand, even if you're a professional, firing out loads of hit productions, you surely also put something from you in it, and you're inspired by something, whatever it is.

[Numanoid]

But don't many of those professional productions suffer a bit from a lack of soul?

They do, but come rain or shine they deliver the goods by the deadline.

[jancivil]

[jancivil]

But regardless of what happens (and I'm about to post what will tend to be received as extreme emotion in music which I never planned in the least, just to illustrate) I do not think like this: "...what music is all about, emotions."

I don't do that either. I think the least do.

You said that something composed with no emotion going in will be "lacking in what music is all about. Emotion.
"surprised that some don't see it as translating emotions into music. What else would it be?" <- you.

Still, the output will always be the result of the mood.

No. Again, I'm interested in music, not expressing my emotions. Music is stronger than that. I have better discipline than that.

Imagine you're pissed off, and have to write a happy song.

I've never had to write "a happy song" and I think I illustrated my thought on that kind of thing already.

Would you think the result would be any good? Unless you're a total professional, with much experience, who knows blind how to tailor a good song, i don't think so.

I'm not going to make anything that isn't any good. I have a lot of experience, I suppose.

I don't get that Stravinsky quote BTW. Especially, when i read the whole thing on Wikipedia. What exactly did he want to say with that? What IS music then, if not a way to express what you feel?

Can't help you.

[jancivil]

But don't many of those professional productions suffer a bit from a lack of soul? On the other hand, even if you're a professional, firing out loads of hit productions, you surely also put something from you in it, and you're inspired by something, whatever it is.

It begins to look like all music is is pop songs for you.

But, I asked you to try to understand and you just aren't. After I have tried to explaine, you stay with this notion that one either behaves as you preconceive they must or they are doing something dry as dust with nothing of themselves in it.

& Stravinsky was quite articulate. "[Expression] is simply an additional attribute which, by tacit and inveterate agreement, we have lent it, thrust upon it, as a label, a convention – in short, an aspect which, unconsciously or by force of habit, we have come to confuse with its essential being."

It's the emotion of the beholder. You can't control what the receiver feels anyway.

Stinky Wizzleteats: "I don't think you're happy enough. I'LL TEACH YOU to be happy!"
like he's about to beat it into you

[jancivil]

All these pop songs that want you to feel this thing so you'll be addicted to it or some shit and be forced to buy the f**k, irritate me no end with all these histrionics in service of it. There is little chance I'll feel their yearning and heartbreak, I know I'm being manipulated. Sometimes I'm moved quite a lot by instrumental music. I wouldn't even want to explain it.
I don't go for love songs much.

[nineofkings]

Jan is being very sort of postmodern about the whole thing. It comes down to what you aim to do with not just music but art in general. For many people music is an outlet for emotion, directly. But Jan is saying "there's no way to say X music expresses Y emotion, but music is valuable anyway." Is a G chord followed by a B chord inherently happy or sad? No. Can you make it seem so in context? Yes. Depending on who you are, one of those answers matters more than the other.

Either way it matters to the OP. Music either helps you hash out your inner struggles or distracts you from them.

[xoxos]

"music is about what we feel"

DFA death. from. above.

[jancivil]

I forgot what postmodern means.

I just don't look at music to express a thing. Now, there are certain things in the piece Zoot Allures by Frank Zappa that have made me cry, not a very simple emotion at all. It touches me, it's just that beautiful, I don't know and I don't care about describing it really. I'm very easily moved to tears, in fact. But I do_not look to music to experience a type_of, let alone a single emotion; music has the power to transcend all the bullshit of the earthly plane. I have had moments of John Williams' music in movies where I say Please no, I wont to be led around like that.

But I have never tried to make a chord change do something specific in emotion.
I remember a conducting student at SFCM (I was no longer there but several people were) doing that Stravinsky thing, not quoting it but stating that idea, then 'Ah, Stravinsky said it to where you can get it'.
I didn't agree then. I was early-mid 20s then, some 35 yrs ago. I'm not sure that's completely right today, but turn it around in your head a bit and think about people's varying reactions to some music. People project themselves onto it, is what he was saying, and we all buy into it because it's a common belief. He preferred to be objective.

Even if most people hear, say, ex post facto of mine and say 'beautiful anguished cry' or like that, it's just the best melody for the harmonies. The harmonies reflect what I've heard in music, refer to history, but I don't even have a state of mind let alone dwell in it. I write parts (there I was interested in early music counterpoint/voice leading to late romantic changes), and then I'll do the solo guitar or something.

Yes, as I said, 'things do bubble up during', it's inevitable. Extents wound up with me doing Diamanda Galas extremes on the thing. I wasn't pissed off during it, I was working with the objects. She's expressing outrage but I think it's not simple.
Music can be so much greater than I'm angry/I'll write a song about it type thing.

Now, FZ explained to one journo how improvisation works for him. Tension and release and working with harmonic climates, the more expansive the harmonic rhythm, the more freedom. He said shit like 'Major 7th chord is you're falling in love' on top of the usual 'Major chord is happy, minor is serious' shit but he was used to talking to people that need that kind of help I think.

[jancivil]

All that said, when I cannot do music anymore it's over for me, because I HAVE TO forget the rest of what life is. Physical pain foremost.

[jancivil]

Typical on youtube when there is serial dodecaphony, the average listener finds it, is upset already has to react and they say the composer is a psycho, it's disordered and sick like they gotta be an axe murderer. Well, there is German Expressionism in the 2nd Viennese School and Berg's Lulu is supposed to be f**ked-up every which way. But I assure you it's richly nuanced derangement.

I did do two (12-tone) things which are cartoonish deliberately. I find a couple of licks hilarious. I can't ensure you will. The cheap gongs with idiotically wambly pitchbend, well I'm reasonably sure that's not going to depress you any more than a Bugs Bunny picture would unless you really identify with Elmer Fudd.

Movie music: people improvise. People with chops improvise and feel their way thru a scene. Sometimes the best thing will be to go against the grain/the expectation. I saw some thing at the Music Theory board here where someone talked about literal do this for this emotion in some school and I find that just the worst.