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Complexity takes different dimensions. Take American folk music, for example, something I know well. The songs and melodies are very simple. The performance is
by beat 10y ago
Complexity takes different dimensions. Take American folk music, for example, something I know well. The songs and melodies are very simple. The performance is incredibly sophisticated. Addressing both individuality and tradition simultaneously, expressing the emotional content of the lyrics effectively... doing folk music is really, really hard.
If all you're doing is counting notes, Bach is more complex. If you bring expressiveness into it, the Carter family trounces Bach. And if you want to hear Bach ruined, just plug the notation directly into a midi sequencer with no human involved in the performance.
Music is both intellectual and emotional. Measuring only the intellectual aspect is a disservice to music. The emotional and cultural roles of music matter. This is often lost in "music theory".
I remember a long time ago, watching Peter Gabriel perform at a charity concert for human rights. A quarter million people in the audience, and he got them to do a sing-along of the chorus to "Biko", a song about the death of South African activist Steve Biko, who was beaten/tortured to death in police custody. Peter Gabriel was sitting on the edge of the stage, swinging his legs, providing minimal guidance. A quarter million people raised their voices together. How is that less sophisticated than a Bach fugue?
You raised the example of Simon and Garfunkel. "The Sound of Silence" will last in human society as long as Bach does. It will still be heard centuries from now. That's sophistication.
- apalmer 10y agoSeems like you are reading into this much greater implications than is intended. Classical music is in general much more complex and sophisticated than pop music. This is undeniably true by any rational yardstick. Whether its better or not is completely a different question.
- beat 10y agoSimplicity is sophistication as well. It's a more difficult form of sophistication than complexity, really. It's easier to add elements than take them away.
- apalmer 10y agoDefinition of sophistication from dictionary.com (of a person, ideas, tastes, manners, etc.) altered by education, experience, etc., so as to be worldly-wise; not naive: a sophisticated young socialite; the sophisticated eye of an experienced journalist. 2. pleasing or satisfactory to the tastes of sophisticates, or people who are educated, cultured, and worldly-wise: sophisticated music. 3. deceptive; misleading. 4. complex or intricate, as a system, process, piece of machinery, or the like: a sophisticated electronic control system. 5. of, for, or reflecting educated taste, knowledgeable use, etc.: Many Americans are drinking more sophisticated wines now. By any of these 5 distinct definitions classical music is more sophisticated than pop music. I understand that you do not like the connotations, but you have to use a word to mean what it actually means...
- ducttapecrown 10y agoI think you're missing that there are multiple "sophistications". There is not just one music education, I don't think. There could be a classical music education and context, and an entirely different pop music education and context. And some pieces of pop music could be very sophisticated by the standards of the people who are educated in that context.
- delazeur 10y agoNumber 4 is the only one of those that could provide a basis for objectively claiming complex music is more sophisticated than simple music. The others are subjective.
- holri 10y agoBach music often consists of incredible easy and small ideas.
- beat 10y agoAll music does, really. I have a friend who pays attention and constantly picks up little tricks of guitar playing from me. When she figures one out, she always says "Guitarists cheat!" I think more to the point, if you have to think about what you're playing while you're playing it, you're hosed. It's like the old question of how does a centipede walk. If the centipede thinks about walking, it falls. So music, even very complex music, tends to be built from small, easy to grok bits of technique, small enough that a player can simply memorize them, the way we memorize how to walk, or how to conjugate verbs.
- gardano 10y agoI loves me some Thielmann Susato as much as the St John Passion. Both occurred before the US Constitution and deserve to live on in our cultural memory. I couldn't agree with you more.
- the_cat_kittles 10y agostart listing the yardsticks, i think you'll see it's not such an open and shut case.
- gardano 10y agoI'd argue that in baroque music, much of the notation is a scaffold upon which to build the performance. Often it's forgotten that articulation, ornamentation, and improvisation are all supposed to be assumed in baroque performance practice. And that in many cases (nowadays), all three of the above are tossed aside (thankfully, less so nowadays -- with performers skilled in performance practice). Remember: Bach was much better known as a performer/improviser rather than as a composer in his own days. Combining the complexity of Bach's compositions with the complexity of his (or someone else's) actual performance just adds additional layers of the type of sophistication that you're speaking about.