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I'm not a musician but this bothers me "Those who achieve such heights are capable of playing the most complex, technically difficult music on equally complex

I'm not a musician but this bothers me "Those who achieve such heights are capable of playing the most complex, technically difficult music on equally complex instruments that take decades to master" Complexity just isn't of value in software and I don't know if it is in music. One of my favourite pieces is Bach's Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring, and that's extremely simple (ISTM. IANAMusician. YMMV. etc). The only value to music is a purely subjective one, how do assess merit in such a situation.

winchling 7y ago
Yes. To me it seems that great players find something new and relatively simple in the music and then find a way to communicate it in performance. Likewise, the best music is simple in its core. Starting with melody. If I can't remember the tune, perhaps it was too complex. Apparently it's hard to compose simple melodies. They're like mathematical theories: much easier to appreciate than to discover. And there is a darker side to complexity. Many in the audience will entertain fantasies about becoming great players themselves and occupying the place of the soloist now on stage. To them, complex technical feats are glamorous and worthy of slavish emulation.
- posterboy 7y ago
  I dislike many of those statements, because optimality is neither simple nor complex. And that's why I totally agree that it is difficult for a tune to appear simple, but recognizable. Corrolar: software should be just as complex as the problem that it is trying to solve, and if the problem is difficult, the code will be difficult. Finding an optimal code might be more difficult than the problem that is supposed to be solve.
  - winchling 7y ago
    >optimality is neither simple nor complex Yes, however, do you think that music should be beautiful? And is beauty easy, or hard, to apprehend? If your answers are 'yes' and 'easy' then I think you'll naturally appreciate simplicity or the emergence of simplicity from a complex background.
- braythwayt 7y ago
  A lot of music appreciation involves an arc of progression. In Jazz, for example, complex solos sound like random wankery to the person beginning their journey. But after you acquire a grounding in the basic forms like blues and rhythm changes, then suddenly, more complex music stops sounding random. It makes sense when played with the simpler music as a backdrop. Then after you’ve listened to that for a while, even more complex music suddenly makes sense. And so it goes for a while. Then you listen to a simple piece again, but you hear something in the simple piece that you literally didn’t notice at first. The complex music has trained you to notice a certain note or phrasing, and you realize that what you heard wasn’t simple, it too was complex, but it was complex in a subtle way. Music is not absolute. It is a conversation between performer and audience that changes both.
  - PorterDuff 7y ago
    "But after you acquire a grounding in the basic forms like ...rhythm changes" I suppose that anyone who has heard the theme from The Flintstones has already done that.
- PorterDuff 7y ago
  To some extent, I think that 'simple' depends on your own listening history. Jazz that sounds like noise to one listener might sound logical to the next once the second guy has internalized all of the cliches that are built into the music. If tension-release mechanisms simply result in tension, you gotta problem. I've largely retooled my thinking on a lot of these things. I can see more genius in a pop tune that is highly addictive than in something with complex changes going 100 miles an hour. Rather than wondering why people prefered (being an old guy) The Eagles to Joe Henderson, I've made an effort to appreciate popular music more. Dunno much about classical music, and you can argue about whether it's anything but a museum piece (and interesting more for live sound in an era of perfectly good recordings), but I've always been surprised how jazz has largely avoided taking on useful rock cliches in building arrangements. I would think that instrumental music would be more popular as a result.
coldtea 7y ago
>Complexity just isn't of value in software and I don't know if it is in music. One of my favourite pieces is Bach's Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring, and that's extremely simple (ISTM. IANAMusician. YMMV. etc). Which is neither here, nor there. Nobody said that music has to be complex to be good. But a good classical musician should be able to play the complex pieces too. So, that's like saying every painting should be simple like Mondrian or Rothko or Lichtenstein. Well, we also have great masters who did much more complex, nuanced, and difficult to execute paintings... Artist expressing themselves can do it with simple pieces like some of Bach's and tons of others, or with very difficult pieces, and a classical musician to have a career should be able to play a lot of that repertoire... You don't get to be a concern pianist or violinist if you only play the simple pieces...
- tempguy9999 7y ago
  > Which is neither here, nor there If my personal anecdote counts for anything, it means that complexity is orthogonal to the 'good' in music. If so, it is here and there. > You don't get to be a concern pianist or violinist if you only play the simple pieces... I haven't heard analysed enough classical music, not do I have the ability to, to determine if there is any value in complex music other than coincidental. If you are a musician I'd appreciate your view. I can't deny the amazing skill in the singing, but is this complex? I love it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tDm_uH0O30 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tDm_uH0O30 If you'd like to nominate some complex (in your view) music you like I'd be very interested indeed.
  - cmroanirgo 7y ago
    There are some pieces (eg Chopin, Lizt) that seem very simple and yet are very complex in their playability, but are beautiful. (As an average piano player, they're out of my league). I once wrote a few bars (as a contemporary music exercise for a course I was doing) that used all 12 tones in a non repeating manner and it had all the requisite parts: motif, development and resolution, and for the task at hand and my musical ability, it was rather 'pretty'. My teacher loved it.
  - coldtea 7y ago
analog31 7y ago
The article is about working. Very few musicians can call their own shots in terms of what repertoire to play, and work enough to support themselves. They have to play whatever gets thrown at them. I have some experience with this as a part time jazz bassist. When I get a call, the organizer often doesn't even know how hard the bass part is, or exactly what material they are planning on programming for the gig. There is no coding interview. I have a few seconds to say yes or no. Saying no too many times wipes me off the map, and I get to start building my reputation again from scratch. Saying I don't like a particular kind of material because it's too complex, or whatever, puts me on the "hard to work with" list.
jdietrich 7y ago
As a non-musician, you don't really know what complexity sounds like and what is or isn't difficult to play. A guitarist can play a flurry of notes that looks ridiculously difficult to a lay person, but that a musician will immediately spot as a cheap trick; conversely, there are all sorts of incredibly subtle and difficult things that go completely un-noticed by 99% of the audience, but have a huge impact on the performance. You know what you like, but you don't have the training to know what's actually difficult. I'd wager that you like a lot of very complex and difficult music without realising it. Bach was, in his day, a highly experimental composer who pushed the limits of music technology (e.g. The Well-Tempered Clavier) and is still regarded as one of the most sophisticated composers of all time. The Goldberg Variations involve some immensely difficult passages; the Chaccone from his Partitia in D Minor would have most violinists quaking in their boots. Technical skill isn't a virtue in itself, but it's essential if your job is literally playing whatever is put in front of you, no questions asked.

winchling 7y ago

Yes. To me it seems that great players find something new and relatively simple in the music and then find a way to communicate it in performance. Likewise, the best music is simple in its core. Starting with melody. If I can't remember the tune, perhaps it was too complex. Apparently it's hard to compose simple melodies. They're like mathematical theories: much easier to appreciate than to discover. And there is a darker side to complexity. Many in the audience will entertain fantasies about becoming great players themselves and occupying the place of the soloist now on stage. To them, complex technical feats are glamorous and worthy of slavish emulation.

posterboy 7y ago
I dislike many of those statements, because optimality is neither simple nor complex. And that's why I totally agree that it is difficult for a tune to appear simple, but recognizable. Corrolar: software should be just as complex as the problem that it is trying to solve, and if the problem is difficult, the code will be difficult. Finding an optimal code might be more difficult than the problem that is supposed to be solve.
- winchling 7y ago
  >optimality is neither simple nor complex Yes, however, do you think that music should be beautiful? And is beauty easy, or hard, to apprehend? If your answers are 'yes' and 'easy' then I think you'll naturally appreciate simplicity or the emergence of simplicity from a complex background.
braythwayt 7y ago
A lot of music appreciation involves an arc of progression. In Jazz, for example, complex solos sound like random wankery to the person beginning their journey. But after you acquire a grounding in the basic forms like blues and rhythm changes, then suddenly, more complex music stops sounding random. It makes sense when played with the simpler music as a backdrop. Then after you’ve listened to that for a while, even more complex music suddenly makes sense. And so it goes for a while. Then you listen to a simple piece again, but you hear something in the simple piece that you literally didn’t notice at first. The complex music has trained you to notice a certain note or phrasing, and you realize that what you heard wasn’t simple, it too was complex, but it was complex in a subtle way. Music is not absolute. It is a conversation between performer and audience that changes both.
- PorterDuff 7y ago
  "But after you acquire a grounding in the basic forms like ...rhythm changes" I suppose that anyone who has heard the theme from The Flintstones has already done that.
PorterDuff 7y ago
To some extent, I think that 'simple' depends on your own listening history. Jazz that sounds like noise to one listener might sound logical to the next once the second guy has internalized all of the cliches that are built into the music. If tension-release mechanisms simply result in tension, you gotta problem. I've largely retooled my thinking on a lot of these things. I can see more genius in a pop tune that is highly addictive than in something with complex changes going 100 miles an hour. Rather than wondering why people prefered (being an old guy) The Eagles to Joe Henderson, I've made an effort to appreciate popular music more. Dunno much about classical music, and you can argue about whether it's anything but a museum piece (and interesting more for live sound in an era of perfectly good recordings), but I've always been surprised how jazz has largely avoided taking on useful rock cliches in building arrangements. I would think that instrumental music would be more popular as a result.

coldtea 7y ago

>Complexity just isn't of value in software and I don't know if it is in music. One of my favourite pieces is Bach's Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring, and that's extremely simple (ISTM. IANAMusician. YMMV. etc). Which is neither here, nor there. Nobody said that music has to be complex to be good. But a good classical musician should be able to play the complex pieces too. So, that's like saying every painting should be simple like Mondrian or Rothko or Lichtenstein. Well, we also have great masters who did much more complex, nuanced, and difficult to execute paintings... Artist expressing themselves can do it with simple pieces like some of Bach's and tons of others, or with very difficult pieces, and a classical musician to have a career should be able to play a lot of that repertoire... You don't get to be a concern pianist or violinist if you only play the simple pieces...

tempguy9999 7y ago
> Which is neither here, nor there If my personal anecdote counts for anything, it means that complexity is orthogonal to the 'good' in music. If so, it is here and there. > You don't get to be a concern pianist or violinist if you only play the simple pieces... I haven't heard analysed enough classical music, not do I have the ability to, to determine if there is any value in complex music other than coincidental. If you are a musician I'd appreciate your view. I can't deny the amazing skill in the singing, but is this complex? I love it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tDm_uH0O30 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tDm_uH0O30 If you'd like to nominate some complex (in your view) music you like I'd be very interested indeed.
- cmroanirgo 7y ago
  There are some pieces (eg Chopin, Lizt) that seem very simple and yet are very complex in their playability, but are beautiful. (As an average piano player, they're out of my league). I once wrote a few bars (as a contemporary music exercise for a course I was doing) that used all 12 tones in a non repeating manner and it had all the requisite parts: motif, development and resolution, and for the task at hand and my musical ability, it was rather 'pretty'. My teacher loved it.
- coldtea 7y ago

analog31 7y ago

The article is about working. Very few musicians can call their own shots in terms of what repertoire to play, and work enough to support themselves. They have to play whatever gets thrown at them. I have some experience with this as a part time jazz bassist. When I get a call, the organizer often doesn't even know how hard the bass part is, or exactly what material they are planning on programming for the gig. There is no coding interview. I have a few seconds to say yes or no. Saying no too many times wipes me off the map, and I get to start building my reputation again from scratch. Saying I don't like a particular kind of material because it's too complex, or whatever, puts me on the "hard to work with" list.

jdietrich 7y ago

As a non-musician, you don't really know what complexity sounds like and what is or isn't difficult to play. A guitarist can play a flurry of notes that looks ridiculously difficult to a lay person, but that a musician will immediately spot as a cheap trick; conversely, there are all sorts of incredibly subtle and difficult things that go completely un-noticed by 99% of the audience, but have a huge impact on the performance. You know what you like, but you don't have the training to know what's actually difficult. I'd wager that you like a lot of very complex and difficult music without realising it. Bach was, in his day, a highly experimental composer who pushed the limits of music technology (e.g. The Well-Tempered Clavier) and is still regarded as one of the most sophisticated composers of all time. The Goldberg Variations involve some immensely difficult passages; the Chaccone from his Partitia in D Minor would have most violinists quaking in their boots. Technical skill isn't a virtue in itself, but it's essential if your job is literally playing whatever is put in front of you, no questions asked.